


Ira Contra Moriens Lux

by Isis_the_Sphinx



Series: Beholderverse [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Ended up being canon to Beholderverse, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Fuck You Bahamut, Gods as more than extra large weapons, Ifrit Redemption, It's Regis' canon death no worries about the bros, Luna's a REAL GIRL, M/M, Multi, Pitioss Ruins Theory, Ravus doesn't always have a stick up his butt, Refusal to bow to the inevitable, Regis as a desperate King and Father, SPOILERS GALORE FOR EYES OF THE BEHOLDER, Started as a character voice practice, blame my girlfriend, no beta we die like writers, papa!Cor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 21:45:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16127360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis_the_Sphinx/pseuds/Isis_the_Sphinx
Summary: Full Story ToNam Stellae, Reflexionem.The Pokémon world suffers from a bit of asieveeffect. Things fall there from inter-dimensional space. Sometimes they open up and things go through, get lost.The connections to be made are multitude. Possibilities,endless.It opens up paths no prophecy could predict. So, when given one, never give in. Never surrender.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hack](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11624823) by [Lynxrider](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynxrider/pseuds/Lynxrider). 



> Welcome to _Ira Contra Moriens Lux!_ This fic is canon to Eyes of the Beholder, about eight years in Brienne's future, give or take. (I say give or take because there's time travel involved in EotB and I haven't quite finalized it yet. It's in flux.)  
>  If you're here for the Pokémon, there's not gonna be much, just Bri's team. If you're here for the FFXV, great! There's gonna be a LOT of that. It's mostly a retelling of the game, though as of chapter six things have gone a bit off the rails, so I don't know. I'll let you know when I get past it. 
> 
> Story title and theme inspired by Dylan Thomas' poem "Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light."
> 
> Early story to be posted during October/November 2018. The rest? Who knows. Will not be abandoned.  
> Enjoy!

“What do you _mean_ a flock of Skarmory got lost? They’re solitary birds. They only come together to mate,” Brienne growled at the trickster-god.

Hoopa flinched at her stare but nodded. _“You know better than anyone that this world is prone to holes. It’s why we’re here, after all. But I can’t get them from this world.”_

“Why _not?_ I am not an errand girl, I have responsibilities here, god-honored ones. You know that, being one of the gods that honors them.” Her arms folded in a visible huff.

_“I can’t see into that world. Not well. The darkness is...sticky.”_ Hoopa made a disgusted face.

“A darkness an occasionally dark type doesn’t like? This doesn’t bode well. How did so many Skarmory vanish into the same hole?” Her head tilted to the side in a habit she’d gained from her partner.

_“Skarmory like shiny things, almost as bad as Murkrow do.”_

“And there was something super-shiny on the other side. Godsdamnit,” she sighed. “Alright, fine. How big’s the flock and how long d’you think it’ll take me to _find_ them all?”

_“Celebi said--says--to pack for a long haul.”_

“What.”

_“Sorry. You’ll need about twenty pokéballs. They haven’t been gone long, but…”_

“They’re fucking Skarmory so they’ll go all over the place if given the chance.” There was a headache behind her eyes, and her fingers came up to pinch the bridge of her nose in habit. “I need time to pack for that. Need to get the Elite Four called up and on standby, and for Calem to be in-region in case shit goes down and I’m not back.”

_“You don’t have time for contact. You need to pack as fast as you can. The stickiness in that world is only getting stickier. Dialga’s working on blending the two timelines, you don’t need to worry about how long you’ll be gone.”_ Hoopa waved one disembodied hand as if the worries of humans were trivial.

Brienne narrowed her eyes at him. “...I’m going to kick your ass so hard when I’m back. I don’t care that you use portals. It’ll hurt one way or another.”

The little djinni just giggled. _“Uh-huh.”_

“Can you tell me anything about this world?”

_“Uhhh...It’s smaller than this one, and it has humans?”_

Remember to pack _lots_ of headache pills. “Helpful. Truly.” Her voice was drier than the badlands in summer.

_“I try!”_

~*~

_Hawkie,_

_Yeah, I’ve gone and vanished again. Wasn’t without warning this time. Gods need me to do retrieval on a bunch of wayward Skarmory. That aren’t on this planet anymore. Hoopa is a little SHIT and don’t let him tell you otherwise. I seem to be the expert on inter-dimensional travel so I’m first at go-to for help._

_Some days I wish I hadn’t made Champion. My life would be quieter._ _  
_ _...What am I saying I’d be bored out of my ass._

_ANYWAY. I’m barely being given enough time to write this AND pack. I’m gonna be gone for months, the way Hoopa made it sound. Keep watch for bullshit, you have Calem’s number if you need it. DON’T go doing things alone, or I will kick your ass when I come back. And I’m gonna ask Jenny and Emma if you got hurt while I was gone, so don’t think about hiding it._

_I will know. I always know._

_I’ll be careful. I’m taking everyone with me, so I won’t be without backup. I’ll be VERY careful. I promise to come back safe, too._

_Out of time. See you when I get back. Love you, partner._

__ ~*~

“So, how’re we doing this?” Brienne stood just outside the entrance to the Champion’s Gauntlet, well-worn duffle full and on her back, clad in her battle armor. A white padded tunic sat under a layer of chain main, and over that was her lavender tabard, the Kalos’ coat of arms embroidered in gold and white over her chest. She wore gloves, gauntlets and greaves, and her skirt of shifting plate-mail that echoed the old grecian style that was tougher than it looked. Her boots were encased in the same shining silver steel, as was the back of her neck and shoulders. Her helm was more something that outlined her cheekbones and forehead, for optimal sightline and movement.

She had _no idea_ of the environment she was landing in, and for _once_ she’d be prepared.

Hoopa grinned and giggled, like he knew something she didn’t, and would enjoy the joke. Probably true. _“I’m dropping you off in the place least sticky. It’s a...crystal? Of some sort? Big. I’ll be able to see you any time you’re around it, so when you want to come home, just go for it, okay?”_

Well, at least she couldn’t miss it. “Alright. But you better fucking _watch_ shit while I’m gone. If everything’s gone to hell when I come back, once it’s all fixed it’s _your_ ass I’m coming after.”

_“Uh-huh. Best behavior. Got it. Enjoy your trip!”_

Hoopa _smirked_ and threw his left arm-hoop. Right under her feet.

Oh _fu-_

She fell.

~*~

Regis ached. It was a constant feeling, now, but he felt it more keenly in that moment. It was hard to pay attention to his lieutenants bickering about the upcoming ‘peace treaty’ with Niflheim. The sciatica had kicked in with a vengeance, his knee throbbed, a headache pounded right between his eyes, and this godsdamned throne was the most uncomfortable chair he’d ever sat in, and that included a stripped down front seat of a truck with Cid entwined somewhere in the machine’s guts!

Hammerhead with its heat sounded lovely right about now.

Clarus, by his side, grumbled just loud enough for him to hear, and he knew that was the cue to send everyone off for the day.

“Ahem,” he cleared his throat, letting more than a little irritation he had show through. Voices cut out like a flipped switch. In his head, he grinned. There were few small joys about being King. This was one of them.

“Tempers are high. Get some food, get some rest, we’ll come at this again tomorrow,” he said, as diplomatically as he could manage.

“Your Majesty,” came back at him in a chorus, and he waved a hand to dismiss them.

...Of course most of the in-city nobles were the first out.

Just in time for them to be _completely_ ushered out when a large golden ring appeared right smack in the middle of the throne room, hovering horizontally at about fifteen feet. The ring of steel echoed in the large stone room as multiple Crownsguard drew weapons, ready to face the new threat. Clarus and Cor stood at his right and left, either to shuffle him to somewhere else or kill whatever this was very dead.

Ignis, his son’s advisor, stood at the foot of the throne, himself, daggers out and already holding flame.

None of them expected a figure in purple, pack-encumbered, to come tumbling out of it, landing cleanly but uncoordinated under the gold hoop.

“Damnit, Hoopa, I couldn’t’ve just _walked_ through a gateway?!” she--probably she, from her voice--spat at where she came, clearly irritated and unaware of where she’d landed.

The ‘gateway’ gave a cheeky little wiggle and vanished as easily as it came. Poor dear. Someone on the other side did not care. Much. Regis raised an eyebrow in mild amusement.

The girl finally stood up and took in her surroundings. Her very well armed and aggressive surroundings. Her face paled just a bit.

“Oh dear. That’s quite a lot of sharp, pointy objects,” she muttered, not at all quietly.

Now that he could get a good look at her, as she faced him, slowly, hands rising in the air, open, he made his first assumptions.

Fighter, or at least someone _seen_ as one. That armor meant nothing else. Artisanal, but functional. _Young,_ was his second thought. Clear face, unweighted eyes, even with the nervousness that came with being surrounded by weaponry. No visible weapons, but that didn’t mean much here. Two belts with oddly colored orbs at her waist, red and white. Grenades? No, too well-made and specifically colored to be so. Why paint a thing that would explode. Set for travelling, if that pack was anything to go by. It didn’t look like it weighed her down much, so either she was ridiculously strong for her small size or there wasn’t much in there. Experienced outdoorswoman?

“Who are you?” Cor demanded, voice no-nonsense. “How did you get in here?”

The young woman took another second to assess her surroundings and decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

Hands still in the air to denote non aggression, she spoke. “Brienne Lalonde, Champion of Kalos. Or, er, Commander-in-Chief, if the first term doesn’t translate.” Steady, clear voice, well-pitched to fill the entire room. Training there, even with the audible nervousness. A leader of a country? Interesting. “Hoopa has interdimensional abilities. That gold ring is how he uses them. Apologies for dropping in unannounced.”

Even more interesting, and just a bit terrifying.

The rippling shockwave of interest and shock caused even more tension, though Ignis had released hold of the flames on his blades. Curious. The boy was sharp enough to often see things the rest of them didn’t, and if he didn’t see an immediate threat, then there probably wasn’t one.

He stood, and motioned for the guard to stand down. Most did, though Clarus and Cor only lowered their weapons.

Regis bowed his head in greeting. “Welcome. I am King Regis, of Lucis. You have...arrived in the Citadel of the crown city.” He gave the young woman a small smile.

Her ears went the slightest bit pink, but she hid the blush from her face quite well for someone so young. Her hands slowly came down, before she dropped into a curtsey, low enough to be considered polite. “My apologies again, Your Majesty. I have...little choice on where and how I arrive, and Hoopa himself is a notorious trickster. I would have very much rather done this on better terms, with less surprise, but Hoopa said something about a crystal being the best place to put me.”

He blinked. Something in him sighed and gave way. What was the harm? This upcoming peace treaty was a complete ruse. There was nothing he could do, and this _Champion_ could at least throw a _small_ monkey wrench into the hell that was to come. At this point, he would use anything he could get his hands on.

He still had to keep up appearances, however. “What is your purpose here? You seem loaded for bear for a long trip.”

“Retrieval. Our world is prone to interdimensional rips. Sometimes things fall through to our world, other times things or beings fall through to others. I was told a large flock of Skarmory fell here.” Even voice, still strong, and the nerves were falling away. This Lalonde was used to situations like this.

“What are Skarmory?” Ignis asked.

“‘Bout five-foot-seven birds encased in steel with blades for wings. And yes they fly,” she added quickly when disbelief colored many faces. “They tend to be solitary, but they also like shiny things. Mostly to see if it’s metal and sharp.”

“How would you go about... _retrieving_ these Skarmory?” Clarus, this time.

“A lot of camping,” she said bluntly. After a head shake, she returned to seriousness. “My people have developed matter to energy technology. The core of it is I go around, find the things, zap them into small containers, and then drag them all back home.”

She would need to _travel,_ even better. He was starting to think the gods had dropped him a last minute gift.

“Are they a danger to the populace? Birds with swords for wings do not sound safe.” Still Clarus.

Lalonde shrugged. “Only if they go up and poke’em with a stick. Or the Skarmory is looking for a challenge. Or a trainer.” She seemed to consider her words, hands in the air and wavering back and forth. “Birds they may be, but they are _fully_ sentient and fairly well sapient. I’d say on the level of a five-year-old, maybe a bit older? For the most part they’re just going to want to make a nest somewhere remote and high up, better if it’s dry and dusty and hot, maybe a volcano within fifty miles, and gather sharp and pointy objects for their nest, and less sharp metal objects to eat. One or two might see a human they like and start to follow them around. They’re more than smart enough to aid in a fight, and can easily be affectionate if they want. Said human will have to prove themselves, however.”

“Prove themselves _how?_ ” Cor asked, sharp.

Cor, are you _wanting_ one? Of course he is, a bird made of blades is right up his alley. Regis mentally snorted.

“Battle. Combat. Not to the death. Usually just a fairly violent scuffle. If they like you, they stick around. They’re ridable.”

Regis took Cor’s full-face twitch as a mental _squee._ Lalonde seemed to sense it, and fought to hide a grin.

“Regardless, we cannot have these...Skarmory roaming the countryside uncontrolled. Very well.” He nodded to Lalonde. “You are welcome within this Citadel. Your belongings and affects will have to be searched, but We will facilitate your journey as much as We can at this point in time.”

Lalonde gave a deep bow of the head and shoulders. “I am grateful, Your Majesty. However, there is one issue.” She put a hand to the odd belts at her waist. Ah yes, a catch. “My bag, I have no problem with. My team, is another story. My belts hold the devices that can change creatures like Skarmory into energy, to be stored. Within these are my _team,_ ” she said team like it was another word for family. “They are non-human, completely sentient, and sapient to various levels. A _few_ can communicate in ways that humans can understand, but most cannot. And most would _not_ take well to strangers examining them.”

She met his eyes, and he could see the steel in her spine, and the compassion that she was asking of him.

“I will gladly aid in introducing each and _every_ one of them and what they can do, but I beg you, do not take them away from me. I will keep them contained until I am allowed otherwise, under constant watch, in any room you want me in. But they are mine, and I have a duty to them, as Your Majesty does to your people. I will not let them come to unnecessary harm.”

At the end of her speech, he saw her _flinch_ , visibly. Why, he did not know. But he understood duty, and what she was trying to say. He heard ‘team’ and thought ‘family,’ heard ‘duty’ and thought ‘love.’

“I see,” he said, voice grave. “Very well. You will be escorted to a cell and watched, as your pack is confiscated and examined. You will introduce your ‘team’ afterwards, one at a time, under heavy guard.”

Lalonde took a deep breath in and seemed to relax. “Your Majesty is gracious,” she said, and curtseyed again.

“Cor, Ignis, escort our new guest. But not the dungeons. She _is_ a ruler of a country, and she’s been perfectly polite, if unexpected.”

Lalonde’s lips twitched in a smile.

~*~

Brienne sat quietly in a sparsely decorated room complete with bed, wardrobe, and connected bathroom. Not too bad, for a person who literally fell out of the sky. The younger of the two that had led her to what summed up as a very nice holding cell had politely asked for her camping pack, and left with it at the room’s door. The elder stood at, not at _attention,_ but he definitely wasn’t at ease as he watched Brienne putter around the room. His eyes followed her every move, and for the most part it didn’t bother her.

She finally sat down on the bed--bounced a little, it was a _nice_ mattress--and started unstrapping her gauntlets. Pretty and as useful as they were in a fight, they were a little awkward when there _wasn’t_ any fighting. She didn’t need to sit in this room covered in metal if she wasn’t going to do anything. The helm came off soon after, and the connecting pauldrons. The skirt, chainmail, and greaves would have to wait.

Ah, what was she kidding, if someone was going to stare at her, she was going to talk.

“So. I assume you have a name and a fancy title, seeing as you were standing to the left of the king. May I know what it is?” She gave him a small grin.

“Cor Leonis, Marshall of the Crownsguard,” he answered. Short, sweet, and to the point. And _absolutely_ not telling her anything else.

Brienne eyed him up and down. If he was gonna stare, it earned her the right to stare back. Short cropped brown hair, bright blue eyes, black jumper under a black leather jacket, black trousers and serviceable shoes, if not boots. And tall. Six-two at least? His head was nearly even with the top of the door jam.

She moved her armor to the bottom of her bed and flopped down onto it, stretching out. _Really_ nice mattress.

“I can practically _hear_ the questions running in circles in your head, Marshall. Go for it,” she drawled to the ceiling.

“Why are you here?”

“Told you. Bunch of wayward metal birds loose in your country. Twenty’s enough to have a stable population for a few generations. You don’t need the environmental mess-up they’d cause,” she shrugged, and didn’t care if he couldn’t see it.

“And you just...popped through to a whole new _world_ to do this.” She could hear the incredulity in his voice.

“Ain’t like it’s _new_ to me,” she sighed. “First twenty years of my life I grew up on one earth, fell through an interdimensional rip, landed in a new one, took me a couple years how to figure out how to get home, and by the time I had all the info I needed, I had these things called ‘duty’ and ‘responsibility’ staring me in the face. Couldn’t exactly go home. Well. I could’ve. But I didn’t. Prolly broke my parent’s hearts.” Her voice was flippant, but it still ached a great deal, her decision.

“How did you become Champion?”

“Oh, it’s a trial by combat, pretty much.” Her hand waved in the air. “Is pretty much everywhere on that world. But Kalos is the only region where Champion means Commander-in-Chief. It’s less political power in others.”

“Trial by combat _how?_ ”

She let that question roll around in her head for a moment. “Define _how._ Like, the type of fighting, or the process of it?”

“...Both.”

She whistled lowly. “You must like hearin’ me talk. Alright. Well, the type of fighting...This is going to need some culture fill-in. Hope you’re ready to take notes.”

He grunted in response.

It got a giggle out of her. “The Skarmory I’m after? They’re a subspecies of creature called _Pokémon._ They’re what represent our fauna. I have knowledge of a good...eight hundred and seven of them, and I spend some time every other month or so learning of more. Anyway, Pokémon have certain abilities. There are seventeen different elemental types, and the abilities they have align with the elements they have. For example, Skarmory are steel and flying types. Makes sense, after I’ve described it. Anyway, they’re fairly agile in the air, and some control over what steel might be around them, but have a weakness to ice, electricity, and having rocks thrown at them. Back to the main point. We use Pokémon to battle each other in what are essentially glorified cockfights. There are other uses, they’re very well integrated into society as a whole--there are Pokémon that are almost exclusively for _healing_ \--but battling’s the main one, and it’s the one that’s gonna put you on the path to Champion.”

She paused for a minute to breathe and wet her mouth. “The path to Champion. Well, to start it is a rite of passage for most children everywhere. You’re given a ‘starter’ Pokémon, usually young, either by parents, someone else in the family, or the regional professorial college. Once given a starter, the ‘challenger’ as they’ll be henceforth called, will head out into the region proper. They camp most of the way, if not all of it, going from town to city to town and going up against gyms. Most regions have eight, all varying in difficulty depending on how many badges you have. A badge denotes you’ve defeated a gym. A gym is where a specialist of one type or another awaits challengers to test their skill against that type. Gym Leaders give out badges and give the final challenge of that gym. Leaders are also responsible for keeping the safety of their towns or cities. Sometimes also the routes surrounding their town. They have acolytes to help. Once you make it through eight gyms, you face the Elite Four. As Gym Leaders are specialists in one type each, so are the Elite Four, but the amount of power and technique they bring to bare is higher exponentially than a Gym Leader. And when you face the Elite Four, it’s a gauntlet run. You don’t get to turn back until you beat all of them, or you yourself are defeated. After the Elite Four, it’s the current reigning Champion. You get time between the E-Four and the Champion to refresh your team, but no official healer can help you until _after_ battling the Champion. The Champion’s team is not specialized by type, and has a full team of six to bring to bare. Elites have five, and Gym Leaders will not have more than four. When battling the Champion, if you wish to take the post, one must show a new innovation during the battle.”

There was a long pause between the end of Brienne’s monologue and Cor’s next question. “What are the statistics of challengers facing the Champion?”

“Very low. Say if one hundred challengers start the League path, only five make it to the Elite Four. Most figure out that they want to do something else with their lives by the time they hit the fourth or fifth gym, which is why it’s a rite of passage for most youth and early-twenty somethings. Anyone who’s hitting the seventh and eighth gym is taking the challenge seriously, but that isn’t many. Out of the five that make it to the Elite Four, only one or two make to the Champion.”

“What’s the rate of Champion turn over?”

Brienne wiggled her hand in the air. “Eeeeeh. Varies by region. It’s higher in places where Champions have less political power, like Unova or Alola. Hoenn’s is about every four years. Sinnoh and Kalos, my region, the average is five years.”

“How long have you been Champion?”

“Six years and counting. This season's challengers never made it past the Elite Four. One of them had potential, but needs another year of polishing.”

“How old were you when you took Championship?”

“Was wondering when you’d get to that one. I was twenty-two.” She grinned at the ceiling as Cor did the easy math in his head.

“Huh.”

It was almost a sin to sit up off a mattress _this_ nice, but Brienne did it, grin still on her face. “So, what _other_ questions ya got for me?” she drawled.

He snorted, amused. “I haven’t even gotten _started_ yet.”

“Well, since I’ve got all day, I’mma get some water first. Want some?” she asked, slipping into the bathroom.

“I’m on duty.”

“Well, yes. And you might be watching me, but this is technically my room for now, and manners are a thing,” she joked.

The bathroom was _very_ plain, but she could see the quality in what _was_ there, and was impressed. “I feel like I’m in a five-star hotel,” she called out, filling her glass. It was plastic, probably so she couldn’t easily make a weapon of it, but still. It was there.

“What hotels have you _been_ in?” Cor asked wryly.

“A lot, actually. But that’s not gonna give you the information you want. Next question?”

Cor took his time thinking about it. Brienne sat back down on the bed, fluffed her pillow with one hand.

“Why send you? As a leader for your region, you’re rather important.”

“Also very replaceable,” she shrugged. “Told you, turnover’s five years. I’ve got a couple people noted legally who can cover for me in emergencies, and the Elite Four do a lot of the work anyway. Champion only really comes in when war is declared, or one of the gods goes on rampage for whatever reason and they need to be fought back to calm.” She swirled the water in her cup. “When I’m not fielding challengers or keeping everything from going to hell in a literal handbasket, I act mostly as ambassador to other regions. I make sure the regional gym leaders are up to snuff with their skills, but don’t have too high or too low a rate of badge passing. Delicate balance. I also chime in on law-creation, but I’m just one vote in a council of many. Technically a senate. But my voice carries a _lot_ of weight, and when I say something, most listen.”

“Didn’t much answer my question, but thank you for answering future ones.” Cor drawled.

“You’re welcome. Hm. Why send me, was it?” She let the question roll around in her head. “Probably because of my personality, and because Hoopa is _technically_ one of the gods of the Kalos pantheon. He was created to help deal with the interdimensional tears my world deals with. Also, well, I’m just used to letting the weird shit roll off my back. It’s how I cope. One hell of a steep learning curve, but I got there.” She shrugged. “And when a god says ‘go do something,’ it’s not like it’s easy to say _no._ ”

Cor cracked out a laugh. “You have a point. Okay, but why send _you_ , when you say this… ‘Hoopa’ is made to deal with this sort of problem?”

“He said something about this world having a ‘sticky darkness.’ I have _no idea_ what he was talking about.”

Cor’s face dropped the _slightest_ bit, and from what she could feel from him, it wasn’t exactly good. But she was in no situation to ask that kind of question. At least, not yet.

King Regis had one hell of a desperate look on his face. What had she fallen _into?_

“So what’s the plan for me?” Innocent look, innocent look, _c’mon_ …

“Your things will be thoroughly inspected for anything that might contradict everything you’ve told me so far. If you pass, tomorrow you will show us your...Pokémon.”

“A’ight,” she shrugged. She’d packed for lots of alone time on the road. Clothes, survival gear, digital music player, knitting, violin...Nothing that would set off alarms. “I’m gonna need a fairly large field. And an area with some aerial clearance. My team’s _very_ varied.”

“I think we can do that. You sound confident.”

“I packed for camping on the road. Nothing exactly offensive in there, unless you’re insulted by outdoor survival gear.”

Cor’s face twitched and she could _feel_ his laugh. She was _probably_ gonna have to tell them about the empathic and aura abilities, but it could wait. She was a lot for one package.

~*~

“So, tell me of your first impressions, Cor.”

A breakfast spread between him, Clarus and Cor was the only way he started his days now, after Izunia had brought ‘news’ of Niflheim’s willingness for a treaty. So he was a bit selfish. He wanted what time he could get with his friends. His days were quite literally numbered.

It was small comfort for the coming days.

Regis brightened as Cor pulled out a folder and ran over his notes. Cor’s handwriting was something only he and his second-in-command, Elshett, could read. It was a wonder the Crownsguard was as organized as it was.

“Investigation of her camper pack revealed a type of technology we’ve never seen before. Items were stored as electronic data for seventy-five percent of what she had. Crownsguard Scientia found the...eject all button.”

Regis chuckled. From the look on Cor’s face, just a twist of the lips, it had been a bit of chaos.

Cor huffed. “We found the expected clothes and camping supplies. What was surprising was the unknown fruit products. We’ve never seen their like. There were jams, seeds, and dried samples. There was also a box labeled ‘medical supplies,’ that contained chemicals we’re unsure of. Samples have been sent to the labs for testing, we’ll have the results later today.”

“Makes sense, with her origins. Probably not chemical warfare?” He asked, with a wry smile.

“No sir, most likely not. We also found what _looks_ like a digital music player of new configuration, some knitting, and a violin in a case. Hobbies.”

“She _did_ say this was going to be a long camping trip. She’d need something to keep herself entertained at night.”

Cor just grunted and shrugged.

“What about her personality?” Clarus asked.

“She’s young. Twenty-eight. A political and military leader won by right of combat, held for six years, mostly as tactician and general with what her people call ‘Pokémon.’ The Skarmory she is here to retrieve are a subspecies. She implied that one of the gods of her pantheon sent her here. She did not detail how big her pantheon _is._ ” Cor mulled over his words. “Upbeat, intensely so. Probably mostly a mask. She said she’s done world hopping before. Was willing to joke with me within ten minutes of talking. Friendly. She was also completely unbothered by the lack of privacy. And _chatty._ College educated, definitely, enjoys thinking about politics and explaining things.”

“Sorry to make you go through that, Cor.” Regis chuckled.

“No, no you’re not,” he muttered.

Regis let his feelings on the matter show on his face. Cor rolled his eyes.

“Anything else of concern?” Clarus was the friend who _dearly_ tried to keep things on track and only succeeded fifty percent of the time.

“She’s got a deeper past than she’s let on. And she refuses to let duty and responsibility to the wayside, even if it means sacrificing family. She mentioned having to do that once. In a way that meant it still hurt.”

Regis leaned back in his chair. “I want to use this. Lalonde represents the perfect surprise for Niflheim. Especially if any of those abilities in combat bring results.”

“That’s a risk. She’s an unknown element, loyal to _no one_ here,” Clarus grumbled.

“ _Exactly._ Niflheim won’t know what hit them. We have no options, and you know it.” He stabbed his scrambled eggs a bit harder than he needed to.

“So what do you want to do?” Cor asked, and sipped his coffee.

“I want to bring her in on everything. Sending Noctis and his retinue away, how we’re sure the treaty’s a bust. Frankly, if she can do _anything,_ I want her causing as much chaos and damage as possible. If one of her gods can transport her from world to world, imagine what the lay people can do on a day to day basis.” He shrugged. “It depends on what she and her...Pokémon, you said? Can do. If it doesn’t pan out, we simply get her out of Insomnia before the treaty and hope she doesn’t get killed. It’s all we’ve got the resources for.”

Clarus stared at him. “You have no more shits to give, do you?”

“Absolutely none. If the Astrals are going to drop a surprise in my lap, I might as well use it.”

~*~

It was quite the crowd that gathered in the grassy training grounds, bright blue sky above their heads. Apparently word had gotten around about their extraterrestrial visitor and were keen to see what, exactly, she could do. The words ‘trial by combat’ had been peppered into the air, and it was a wonder that any secret at all could be kept inside the Citadel, Ignis thought.

Champion Lalonde herself stood in the center of a large circle, outlined by Crownsguard and Kingsglaive who had been in the throne room at the time of her arrival.

She grinned wide when she spotted King Regis.

“Your Majesty,” she curtseyed. “I did not think I would have such a _large_ audience.”

“Champion Lalonde,” Regis returned, smiling more than Ignis had seen in _months._ If this wasn’t a farce, and Lalonde _wasn’t_ somehow a Niflheim spy, he’d absolutely have to get Noctis back into the Citadel for a couple days. “Word gets around.”

“That is alright. I have a dramatic streak a mile wide.” She shifted in place, dressed in the same outfit that she had arrived in, if minus the helm and pauldrons.

Regis settled into the chair brought out specifically for this purpose, and motioned towards their visitor. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Lalonde seemed to think for a moment, drawing a blank, and then her face _plainly_ said, ‘I’m being an idiot.’ Four of the red and white spheres came off her belt, specifically picked from what looked to be long practice, and expanded in her hands.

For a moment, his breath caught. If anything was going to go wrong, it would be here. There was still a chance those things were grenades.

She threw them into the air, straight up, and they all popped open at once.

“Kanaya, Dirk, Dresden, Marcone, let’s strut our stuff! We’re performing for royalty, after all!”

Ignis, and everyone around him, stared. The creatures that appeared looked _nothing_ like the beasts of the wild or the daemons he’d been educated on. Two were similar in height and coloring, though drastically different in shape. One looked feminine with green hair, a rose-pink horn thrust through the center of its--her?--chest, dressed in a flowing white gown. The second looked like a gladiator knight, plumed helmet on its head, swords, perhaps tonfa, strapped to its arms. The third was frankly ridiculously cute and fluffy, and held a wooden staff taller than it was. Long yellow and red fur grew on every inch of the fox-like creature, and moreso out its ears. The fourth looked somewhat canid, but was black and blue, had piercing red eyes, and short, sharp spikes coming from its wrists and one from the middle of its chest.

All five turned to the king and bowed, before the four creatures surrounded Brienne.

“Let’s start with pretty but deadly, and then drop into hand-to-hand,” he heard her murmur.

His eyebrows rose slowly.

Shimmering, green leaves with opalescent edges appeared from nothing, orchestrated from the one in the white gown and began spinning in a circle around the group, daintily, as if led by a soft wind. The second one added more leaves to the spiral, and Lalonde began to follow the spin. The leaves began to twine around Lalonde’s limbs, and she jumped and spun to avoid them touching her in increasingly acrobatic moves.

The leaves abruptly moved to outside the circle and stopped, held by the first two. He spotted their eyes glowing softly.

“I need a little audience participation. Would anyone volunteer something made of steel? A staff, a broken or chipped sword, anything like that? A pipe? I need something significantly solid,” Lalonde called.

It took only a moment for a pipe to come more or less flying out of the crowd. One of the glaive? Ah, Pelna. It was about three feet long, and looked to have recently been taken out of some plumbing.

Lalonde grinned at it. “Many thanks,” she called. She tested its heft, flipped it once, and gripped it tight. Her eyes glittered. “Marcone, help me get some air?”

‘Get some air’ seemed to mean the blue and black canid _tossing_ Lalonde at least thirty feet in the air, the shimmering green leaves following her. ‘Marcone’ was a split second after, jumping even higher to keep her in the air with another throw, landing, and jumping back up.

Lalonde, with each rotation and flip, used the steel pipe to block the leaves that came directly towards her. Each hit came with an accompanying twang that meant _something_ was happening to the steel pipe, but he couldn’t tell what, too far in the air.

“Turn on the heat!” Came Lalonde’s voice, mid-flip, and the fox-like creature set each and every leaf on fire, turning the spiral of leaves into a tornado of flickering flames. Of which Lalonde and Marcone were still in the middle of.

A great _crack_ and the pipe split in two. Lalonde started to block with both halves as Marcone brought her back down to the ground slowly, each throw weaker than the last. Her final throw only took her ten feet up, and she landed with a roll, once again in the center of the other three. Marcone took his place back in the circle.

Lalonde stood and held both ends of the broken pipe to the fox-like creature. “Dresden, play with me?”

‘Dresden’ _trilled_ in what looked like joy, and lit the pipe as if they were pieces of wood.

The two green and white creatures--Kanaya and Dirk--stepped back as their leaves faded into ashes, snowing gently onto the ground, unnoticed by the other three.

Marcone stepped forward to face Lalonde and Dresden as an adversary. He rubbed his front two paws together and then spat burning purple fire at each ‘fist.’ They caught, and burned a wavering purple-blue.

He blinked, and Dresden and Lalonde were in full combat against Marcone. The smell of burning steel and ozone filled the air, clangs as worn steel pipes and wooden staff--on fire as well--clashed together. The three disappeared into a tornado of red-orange and purple fire that only stopped when Marcone blocked Dresden’s staff high in the air with a back foot, and Marcone was blocked by Lalonde, pipes crossed over her head, flames out.

The three paused, absolutely still, before relaxing.

The five reunited in a line, and once again bowed before the king.

Claps and cheers rose from the crowd like a tidal wave.

Lalonde was smiling fit to break her face. “If I may approach Your Majesty? To show you the end result of the pipe.”

“You may,” he nodded.

Ignis was not ashamed to say he used his height to peer over shoulders to see the end result.

The ends that had been on fire were melted into unidentifiable slag, and there were sharp scratch marks all down the lengths of both halves.

Lalonde tapped both slagged ends with a bare hand and then held them out to the king. “Cool to the touch. If you would like to rap sharply on the parts not melted?”

Regis raised an eyebrow, and then did so with a knuckle, one after the other.

The steel _shattered,_ coming apart where the scratches had been, metal falling at the king’s feet.

Lalonde grinned wickedly, as if she had pulled an impressive prank. “The cuts were from those leaves at the beginning of the show.”

There was more than one ‘holy _shit_ ’ in the crowd.

_He_ wanted to know what that purple fire was.

“That was small scale. They can do bigger, but there’s nothing to explode here. And that’s just my first four?”

The grin that grew on Regis’ face promised chaos. It was the same one Noctis got when he had a particularly troublesome idea in mind. “Champion Lalonde, would you tell me what the purple fire was?”

“Oh, that was dragonfire. Marcone’s got a couple variants of it, and I have three other teammates that can do something like it.”

Dragonfire. _Dragonfire._ Yes, he was jealous. And she just says it like there’s nothing special about it!

Regis stood and Lalonde backed away slowly. “My dear, please, come with me. I think we have much to discuss.”

Ignis caught Lalonde’s eyebrows rising on her forehead before Cor called out “Okay, show’s over! Back to work!” and the crowd let her disappear from sight.

Her team of four disappeared in flashes of bright white light.

Gladio nudged him gently in the side. “Pick up your jaw from the ground.”

“It was never there,” he mock-sniffed.

“I can see the jealousy in your eyes from a mile away, Iggy.”

“Yes, well, it won’t be there long. I can’t judge myself against someone from another world, after all.”

Gladio laughed at him, the brute. It was mean to laugh at someone for wanting a new weapon in their arsenal.

~*~

Money oozed from the room King Regis eventually led her to, accompanied by the same man that she’d seen on his right that first day. Panels of dark wood lined the walls, her feet sinking into plush black carpet. A large desk stacked with papers had been positioned in front of a window looking out onto the city itself, and Brienne nearly got lost in the view as she realized how big the city _was._

Without ceremony, Regis sat himself down at the desk, the other man casually sitting on the edge.

It only took a glance to see there was a long friendship between the two.

“You know, I never caught your name,” Brienne asked of the other man.

He smiled, wrinkles appearing in the corner of his eyes. “Clarus Amicitia, King’s Shield.”

Regis sighed softly and gestured to the chair facing his desk. “Please, sit.”

Brienne eyed it. Wooden, tall back, cushioned seat. “I feel like I’ve been called into the principal’s office,” she muttered and sat down.

Both men laughed. “Having called either of our sons here more times than we can count, it probably doubles as that,” Regis said. “With the demonstration outside, and you yourself saying that you’d need things to explode for the larger end of your team’s abilities, I’ll have you debrief Clarus and Cor later tonight after dinner.”

“Understandable,” she nodded.

“You do deserve better than you’ve had so far. As a visiting dignitary, we’ll have you moved into a better room as befitting your status.”

“Thank you.”

“We...do have a few things to ask of you, however.” Clarus said, voice almost hesitant. “As someone who has no connections to absolutely anyone, anywhere.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “I’m listening.” She was wondering when the politics would kick in.

“We’ve kept your arrival and presence as low-key as possible. Everyone in the audience today was either already in the room when you arrived, or had clearance for need-to-know. Anyone else was kept far away from the area, and the landscapers are already in there, erasing any evidence of today’s activities. You could be our...surprise.”

Her second eyebrow joined the first. “You’re desperate.”

Regis huffed. “I thought we hid it fairly well. Don’t you, Clarus?”

Clarus hummed. “How could you tell?”

“I…” she shrugged and felt her cheeks pink. “Have an offshoot of a type of psychic ability called empathy. Sensing empathy, to be precise.”

Clarus’ face turned stony. “And so you’ve just read our emotions out of our heads.”

She pursed her lips. “Not on purpose. That’s _very_ rude, where I’m from. I am _very_ good at blocking it out, for your right to privacy and my sanity,” she sighed. “Look at it this way. Every person is a broadcast tower of emotions. I am the sensitive receiver. My training means I can turn down the volume of what I hear, almost to nothing. Stronger emotions are harder to ignore, large crowds give me headaches if that’s all I’ve got to focus on, and physical contact amplifies it even more. I meditate for an hour every night to keep myself separate.”

“But you can still sense ours,” Regis said, a statement and not a question.

“You are _very_ desperate. It feels like constant anxiety and sadness and an angry frustration and that stupid glimmer of hope in the distance that won’t go away,” she described. “I can read people well, and that’s a learned skill, but I saw it in your face that day in the throne room. It was almost...gleeful?”

Regis nodded. “Yes.”

“Here’s my question. _Why_ are you so desperate?”

“We’re at war. And losing badly.” Regis answered. “We’re backed into a corner and have no more moves left to us.”

“And then I drop right into your lap.”

“Yes,” Clarus nodded. “I don’t like the idea, but Regis is right in that no one would be able to counter you effectively, from what we’ve seen.”

“Not to sound crass, but kingdoms lose wars all the time. It’s what history is made of,” Brienne shrugged. “My involvement is a bad idea.”

“I’m not going to ask you to be on the front lines,” Regis shook his head. “This isn’t your land, it’s not your war. I simply wish…”

_Sorrow_ rammed into her, even with her sensitivity turned down. Guilt, too, and self-hate.

“It’s not just you who’s going to lose. There’s going to be so much death. Am I interpreting what I’m getting right?” Brienne’s eyes locked onto Regis’.

“Yes. The Empire of Niflheim has offered a peace treaty. The war will end if we agree to give up all of our territories but this city, and if my son, the Crown Prince, marries the Oracle in Altissia.” Regis said.

“Sounds a bit weighted on their end, even if you are on the losing side of things.”

Clarus shook his head. “The treaty is a sham. We know that Niflheim simply wants the chance to get inside our borders to completely conquer the kingdom. They want the Crystal and the Ring of Lucii, and don’t care how many die in order to get it.”

“Well there’s a couple terms I don’t understand. What _is_ this Crystal? Hoopa mentioned it.”

“It’s an Astral-given gift that enables magic into the world, through the royal line. The Lucis kings have protected it for two thousand years. It would not work for Niflheim, but they still want it,” Regis answered. “The Ring of the Lucii is the power conduit for it.”

“Ah, they just want power.” Brienne sighed. That was nothing new at all.

“Only I, Clarus, and Cor know that the treaty will be a sham. My son and his retinue will be sent off to Altissia a few days before the event, out of direct danger and given the chance to run once Insomnia falls. It’s...all I can do.”

“...That’s why I haven’t met the Prince yet. You don’t want him to know much about the circumstances.” Brienne’s eyes narrowed as she processed the situation.

“You’ve met one of this retinue. Crownsguard Scientia? And perhaps seen another. My son, Gladiolus. The one who wasn’t wearing a shirt,” Clarus said wryly.

Brienne snorted. “Yeah I saw him. And they don’t know?”

Both men shook their heads.

Brienne stared at the both of them. “So, to sum up. The treaty’s fake and the important people on both sides know it, _you’re_ gonna let it go through anyway to the deaths of most if not all of your armed forces and who _knows_ how many civilians just so you don’t let on to Niflheim that _you_ know, _and_ you’re sending off your sons so they don’t get dead at the same time.”

Both nodded silently.

Her expression turned into ‘you’ve got to be kidding me.’ “And what do you want me to do? Wait, let me guess. As much chaos as possible, and maybe if I have the chance get some civilians out of dodge.”

Regis nodded. “All of Lucis would be in your debt. And, if after, you would protect my son as long as you are able, during your search? I understand you have a duty to your world and its inhabitants, including these Skarmory, and that time away from...Kalos? Would make things harder for you. But I am out of options.”

Her expression quickly turned unimpressed and a little suspicious. “As much as I like causing chaos, I don’t like the idea of being used. And you’re not telling me everything. If the treaty’s a fake, why send your son off for a marriage that will never happen? I get wanting to save him, but that’s the selfishness of a parent, and not the duty of a king…” Brienne’s face narrowed as she put pieces together. “What am I missing? Something to do with your son.”

Regis rubbed his face with his hands.

Clarus sighed. “There’s a prophecy.”

Brienne groaned.

“Am I to assume that your gods give prophecies too?” Clarus said.

“No, because they know better than that. But I read enough high fantasy on my birth world to get the idea. What is it?”

“Noctis--the Crown Prince--is the Chosen King. He will be the one to banish the Starscourge. We have daemons on this world. We have for millenia. The people all over have been waiting for the Chosen King.”

“And he has to die for it to work.” Regis’ voice was barely above a whisper.

A storm of Brienne’s own emotions crashed into her. Rage, not only at Regis for his choices, but the gods of this world, pain and sadness in the _understanding_ of what Regis had to live through, and the true meaning of what her own presence meant as a ‘surprise.’ Of what she represented to Regis. That came with a whole other can of anger and upset and compassion.

“Fuck,” she spat.

“Yes,” Clarus nodded. “That’s what we said.”

She didn’t know how much time passed as she rolled everything around in her head and let it process. She just knew that by the time she’d come to a decision, her knees were tucked up on the chair and she’d buried her face in them, arms wrapped around her head.

Regis and Clarus gave her the time to think. The door clicked open, and she didn’t know who it was until her heard, “Told her?”

“Yup.”

Cor, then.

A sigh, and then a presence at her side, steady and calm, and completely non-judgemental. At the moment, it felt incredibly soothing.

“I’m going to probably outlive them all,” Cor said quietly. “I get it.”

A deep sigh left her, then, and she let her legs fall to the floor. “Alright. I’ll help. One giant dose of chaos at your command.”

“You don’t need to make the decision now.” Regis said, surprised.

She shook her head. “If I went home and my partner found out I hadn’t helped? I’ll never hear the end of it. ‘Always help if you can. You might be the only one who does.’”

Clarus looked at her in surprise. “You’re married?”

“No,” Brienne chuffed softly. “We’re just...partners. I kinda wish he was here now. But there’s gonna be bloodshed, and that would break him.”

Clarus nodded. “I’ll have you set up with a cell phone and some funds. Over the next month until the signing, we’ll have you train with Cor and the Kingsguard that know about you already.”

Brienne nodded. “I want to meet the Prince and his retinue. I can’t just come out of nowhere and watch their backs. I need at least a _little_ history with them.”

Regis hummed. “Very well. I’ll have Scientia schedule it in. Don’t mind Noctis if he’s a little...anti-social. He’s like that with most everyone. He’s honestly just shy.”

She snorted. “Been there. Done that. Bulled through it with sheer stubbornness.”

Regis chuckled.

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting to know you. And you. _And_ you.   
>  And the start of Kingsglaive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter two, are more or less the mid-point of October. Enjoy!

Getting an up-close look, Nyx Ulric decided Lalonde was  _ tiny. _ Maybe five-four if he was being generous. He wanted to pick her up like a sack of potatoes and throw her over his shoulder. What he’d do after that he wasn’t sure. But he wanted to do that. 

Short blonde hair and bright eyes, she was slender like Crowe and he  _ could _ see the muscle there, but it did nothing in light of how short she was. Her waiting stance was good, however, and he’d  _ seen _ her in action, at least in a non-combat situation. She wasn’t afraid of heights, and knew how to move around in mid-air. 

Today’s training would be interesting. 

“Glaive Ulric,” Lalonde greeted, holding a hand out to shake. 

“Champion Lalonde. Evening.” 

She sighed, suddenly, and he wondered what he’d done now. He wasn’t  _ good _ with politics.

“Please, call me Brienne. It’s less syllables, if anything. Formality can wait until we need it. We’re going to be throwing punches at each other.”

Okay he liked her. “Then call me Nyx. I don’t like it either,” he grinned. 

Her eyes lit up at his name and now he was gonna be on edge for  _ something. _ She didn’t tell him immediately. 

“Captain Drautos told me we were gonna work with one of your flyers today? You have  _ flyers? _ ” 

Her grin made her look like she was fifteen, oh gods why. “Two of’em. Oh, I do love coincidences. Wanna meet one of’em? Her species is a Noivern, a type of dragon.”

“Gladly. Let’s see her.”

A flash of light--man, that was cool--and, “Nyx, meet Nyx.”

He wasn’t sure what to stare at  _ first _ , the cool bat-dragon or Lalonde for the  _ very bad _ name joke. He decided the bat-dragon won out. He could grumble about names later. 

Purple wings and underbelly with a black body and a white mane of fur around the shoulders, blood-red claws and green webbed skin under the arm-wings. What topped it off were the green boombox-like ears. 

“Uh, Noivern don’t eat  _ people _ , do they?” Just checking, ‘Nyx’ was bigger than Lalonde was.

“Noivern are fruit bats. Yes, she’s big and scary and turns into a puddle of goo the second you offer her a melon and a belly rub.” Lalonde had her lips pursed together like she was trying not to laugh at him. 

‘Nyx’ cooed and perked up as soon as she heard the word ‘melon,’ looking around like she was about to be handed the treat.

“Aww, sorry baby, no melon yet. Later, though. Flying time now.” Lalonde comforted, and was gently headbutted for her efforts. Small hands came up to scratch under the bat-dragon’s jaw, and Nyx couldn’t believe it, he heard  _ purring _ coming from the thing, its bright yellow eyes closed in bliss. “Wanna pet her?”

“Uh, okay...I guess since we’re waiting for Crowe…” He approached slowly, and she cracked one eye open but nothing else as his fingers joined Lalonde’s in giving the surprisingly soft scaly skin a scratch. 

The purring increased. He couldn’t believe it. It was like scratching a  _ cat _ . A giant, winged, boombox ear cat. He added a second hand and decided to take a risk, scratching into the mane at the top of its shoulders.

The purring increased tenfold and suddenly he had a person’s worth of weight leaning on him. 

“Whoa, whoa, I am not a leaning post,” he drawled. It meant nothing to the bat-dragon.

Lalonde sniggered at him. “Her mane’s her favorite place for pets. Her belly is reserved for post-fruit snack.”

“You’re not  _ helping! _ ” Okay so it wasn’t  _ that _ heavy but now her wings were around him and he wasn’t getting away without warping.

“What is  _ that! _ ” He heard from beyond his new cage of dragon wings. Crowe. Oh no. No, Lalonde, don’t do what I think you’re about to do noooo…

“Glaive Altius? Meet Nyx!”

“...That’s not Nyx.”

He sighed, and squirmed an arm over Nyx’s wings. “Hi, Crowe,” he muttered, already defeated.

“Nyx is a Noivern. Other-Nyx is being used as a leaning post because he scratched her mane and she’s really a big cat with wings.” Lalonde said, her voice all but laughing. 

Crowe  _ laughed. _ Laughed hard enough he was sure--he finally disentangled himself from the dragon--yup, clutching her stomach and bent in two. 

“Shut up.”

“Nyx and Nyx!” she giggled, wiping at her face. “Oh Astrals I wish I could tell Libertus! He’d never let you hear the end of it!”

“ _ You’re _ not letting me hear the end of it!” He glared at Lalonde. Lalonde looked unrepentant. 

Nyx trilled at Crowe.

“So, training?”

Crowe got a hold of herself long enough to let him talk, thankfully.

“You have no problems in the air, so I’m gonna go  _ after _ you in the air and Crowe’s gonna throw fireballs and stuff at you from the ground. Think you can handle it?”

That bloodthirsty look he’d expected at first sight of the dragon finally seeped into her eyes, matching the devil-may-care grin Lalonde gave him. 

“Sounds like fun.”

~*~

“What the  _ fuck _ was that?” Crowe asked, eyes wide and looking a little battered at the end of the session. He was a bit battered, too. He’d gotten his fair share of punches and kicks.

Lalonde gave as good as she got, and had absolutely  _ no _ fear of freefall. That, and her dragon was super-nimble in the air, able to turn on a gil and even hover in place. And that was just the aerial abilities.  _ Nyx _ had given as good as she’d got, too. 

“Boomburst,” Lalonde said, stretching out an arm and rubbing the spot where he’d punched it. “Weaponized ultrasonic air.”

Crowe whistled. “Gonna have to figure out how to manip an aeroga for that. Should be fun.”

“And the other stuff?” He nudged Lalonde gently in the shoulder. 

“Dragon pulse - sorta modified dragonfire? Hard to define, it doesn’t burn, but it’s definitely draconic in nature, air slash, again weaponized air, but focused more like a blade, and flamethrower. You caught that one pretty well, Crowe.”

She grinned. “Fire’s my  _ thing. _ ”

“Crowe is our in-house pyromaniac and we love her for it,” he teased. 

Crowe punched him in the shoulder. Hard. “Ow!”

“Don’t be a baby.” 

Lalonde smiled. “Hey, this was great. But I have a meeting in an hour with Scientia. I gotta go.”

“Ha. Alright. More tomorrow. One of your heavy-hitters?” he offered. If that dragon was for quick in-and-out and dogfighting, what would one of her bigger ones be like?

“You asked for it.” Lalonde shrugged.

~*~

Meeting Ignis Scientia was like running into the flamboyantly gay neighbor that never  _ said _ he was gay but you could tell from one glance all wrapped up in upper-class british accent and  _ puns. _

Of course, the puns only happened when you could get him to relax. 

“Your phone, Champion Lalonde. Will you need help with it?”

Brienne eyed the thin piece of plastic and electronics, turning it over in her hands. So much slimmer than the ‘caster she had, but it looked a lot like the smart phones from home. A quick click on a button on the side and the screen came up. A swipe got her to the home screen. Pretty intuitive. Obvious call and contact icons, the rest could be fiddled with. 

“Nah, I should be good. Is there any way I can get you to call me Brienne? At all?”

Ignis pushed his glasses back up his nose. “It’s quite improper.”

“Didn’t answer my question,” she smiled. “I was a commoner before I became Champion. Dad was a middle school music teacher, and mom was more-or-less a homemaker, when the budget wasn’t tight. When it  _ was _ tight, she was a babysitter.” A snort broke free. “I did my own share of dirty diapers, for a couple years.”

“Ah yes, the joys of laundry.” Ignis drawled.

Brienne mentally cheered. Sarcasm! Step one done!

“May I call you by your given name?” She tilted her head slightly.

“If you wish.” 

Aw, damn, there he’s gone and tightened up again. She’ll save the Prometheus story for later.

“Ignis, I admit, I have a very hard time with the formality. It...chafes? For lack of better word. I feel awkward with it.” She pulled out a couple chairs at the small table her new suite provided her. “Do you have time for tea?”

He glanced at his watch and nodded. “I do. I blocked out an hour for this meeting.”

“Cool. Black or green?” Puttering around the small kitchen made her feel more comfortable. “Go ahead, sit down.”

Something in his face scrunched up, but he did, hands clasped together on the table. “Black, if you would.”

“Can do,” she nodded. Fill pot, put on stove, light element, hunt down tea and tea ball, put leaves in finicky little steel trap, wait for water to boil. Put out teapot in prep for hot water. “Any add-ins? Sugar, cream?”

“Cream, thank you.”

It was only another moment before she had that and the tea biscuits ready and waiting. _ Tea biscuits! _ She propped her hip on the counter’s edge and sighed. 

“I was gonna go to a premiere art school if they accepted my application and I got the scholarship. The one I wanted to go to was the most expensive of the country, but they turned out the best artists. Actors, singers,  _ so many _ had gone there. And I was prepping myself for taking classes with a bunch of other people who didn’t have to have a scholarship or government grants to pay for it. I had no idea what the upper class was like, you know?”

The pot on the stove started to whistle, and she whisked it off before it could become painful to the ears. Hot water into the teapot. Tea ball with leaves into pot. Start counting seconds in her head as to not over steep it.

Grab super-fancy looking tea cups from cabinet with matching saucers and the spoons and set them out.

“I had a backup plan, and I really thought that was what I was gonna be stuck with, because no way was I gonna get the scholarship  _ and _ the accepted application.”

Pour steeped tea into cups carefully, leave room for add-ins. Carry cups to table, return for cream, sugar, and biscuits. And then the pot.

“Of course, going into STEM was going to be just as hard, but at least there I could work my way to where I wanted, gender-bias in the workforce be damned,” she snorted gently. 

Sugar and cream into her tea, stir carefully, don’t make the ding sound-damnit. Her ears warmed.

“What were you going to the art school for?” Ignis asked gently.

“Composition,” she smiled shyly. “I wanted to be the person who composed all the background music to the big dramatic movies. The stuff that  _ makes _ the scene. Sure, a person can be dying dramatically, having saved the damsel, but unless the music in the background is just right, it falls flat.” Take a sip of tea, let the steam warm her face, and oooh it really was good tea. 

“And the STEM focus?”

“Oh, the physics of sound and how it affects…oh I don’t know if I wanted to do the human body or other physical objects. I had a musing to see if I could invent a sonic screwdriver. I like the math behind the music just as much as the music itself.”

Ignis hummed and took a sip of his tea, blinking once in what  _ seemed _ surprise, before drinking more deeply. 

“And then I fell through an interdimensional hole and my whole life turned upside down and inside out,” she sighed heavily. 

“I see.”

Oh come  _ on _ , is that all you have to say?

“If I may…”

“Certainly. Shoot.”

“Why did you become your country’s Champion, if, as you say, all the formality ‘chafes?’ Surely you knew what it would require. And you had plans for another life entirely, ones that you could follow even in another world.”

“Not up front, I didn’t. I was mostly very angry and very determined to yell at a lot of people from a place where they would listen to me,” she replied. “By the time I’d gotten to the point where becoming Champion was a possibility…” 

She put her tea cup down and stared firmly at the brown liquid. 

“There had been an attempt by a terrorist group to, essentially, wipe a  _ lot _ of life off the face of the planet. Of course, it originated in Kalos, so it was Kalos’ problem. By the time I’d gotten to the Elite Four, Ignis, and gotten  _ through _ them, to the Champion of the time, I was  _ furious. _ And still scared witless, but mostly angry.”

“Why?”

“Because the Champion of the time had connections to the terrorist leader and hadn’t seen it coming. Or if she had, did nothing about it. And I couldn’t let that stand. And I wanted her to know, from one of the people who  _ had _ done something about it, just how much she had ‘dropped the ball.’”

Take a swallow of tea, don’t let the anger you’re probably going to have for the rest of your damn life eat you up.

“She had  _ failed _ in her duty and responsibility to protect her country, so I was going to take it away from her, because she couldn’t be trusted to do her job. And in taking, I got it.”

“Hadn’t quite thought that far ahead, had you?” Ignis had a wry smile on his lips.

“Not at all. And then I had all this duty and responsibility on my  _ own _ head. No prep, no lessons, just ‘you’re responsible for the protection of this country now! Good luck!’ There were  _ so many _ PR lessons that first year.”

Ignis chuckled. “I can understand that.”

“I know, right?” She grinned, but it faded into a sigh. “I could’ve handed it off to someone else. Right that next year, a candidate made it through the Elite Four with a team still fresh enough to take me on and possibly win. But. He didn’t have the right look in his eyes. So I made sure to beat him. And it’s been like that for six years.”

The silence stretched on long enough that Ignis finished his cup of tea. He put it down gently and looked her right in the eyes. “Why tell me this?”

A crooked, almost defeated smile appeared on her face. “Because I’m a messy ball of anxiety and panic and awkward social interaction. Because I am alone in a giant kingdom, and except for my team--who I love very much and trust with my life, but they kinda suck at social and mental support--I have no friends. And when I try to make friends, I either flirt or babble on endlessly about myself. Like I just did.” Her whole face heated up. “So, with the risk of sounding like I’m back in kindergarten, Ignis, be my friend?”

“...Oh.” His eyes were wide behind his glasses and there was the slightest hint of red across his nose. “But you don’t know anything about me.”

She shrugged. “I know you went through my camper pack and you’ve treated what you learned there with dignity. I know you’re kind enough to listen to me babble. I gave you an  _ easy _ out, asking if you had time for tea, and then you took your time drinking it, still listening to me. You paid  _ attention. _ And I know you’ve got a flair for the dramatic that  _ probably _ matches mine.”

“Hm? How so?”

“You’re wearing an animal print shirt, Ignis. Muted, and done in a very tasteful color, but still,  _ animal print, _ ” she grinned. “Dramatic.”

“Well, you do have me there.” He nodded. “Friends. Brienne.”

She beamed.

“I  _ do _ have duties to the crown that will keep me quite busy. But I will try my best.”

“That’s alright,” she shrugged. “I’ll probably be super busy too, once King Regis lets me out of the citadel to start looking for Skarmory. Is your number in my phone?”

“Let me put it in.”

~*~

The next day of training-cum-showing off was with the next two of the Crown Prince’s retinue, Ignis had told her, only one of which she’d seen before. 

“...He wasn’t kidding when he said you don’t know how to button a shirt,” was the very first thing out of her mouth at the sight of Gladiolus Amicitia. 

The man next to him laughed. “She’s got you pegged!” Winked with a set of finger guns.

Gladiolus shrugged. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Iggy told me you’re not one for formality, so call me Gladio.”

A grin grew unbidden on her face, relief lightening her shoulders. “I’ll have to thank him for that. And you’re-” her voice stopped dead as she took in the last. Bright blue eyes a color she’d never seen before on a person, pale blonde hair gelled up, and freckles all over his face. “Oh no you’re adorable.”

_ Damn _ her mouth for running away before her brain could catch up. She fought not to hide her face in her hands.

Said ‘adorable’ one squeaked and went redder than a strawberry. 

Gladio snorted. “The adorable one’s name is Prompto Argentum. He’s not gonna be able to talk now.”

Prompto shot a glare off to Gladio but remained silent, the red failing to fade from his face.

“Question,” Brienne held up a finger. “Is  _ everyone _ here taller than me?”

“Probably, why? Someone holding it over your head?” Gladio asked, looming over the shorter blonde. 

Her eyes narrowed as she tilted her head up. “Probably just the guy I’m lookin’ at,” she drawled. 

Deep, booming laughs erupted from Gladio. “Alright, Shortstack, let’s get to it. Who and what’s your heavy-hitter?”

With a final mental promise of retribution, Brienne spun on the spot. “Her name’s Cinnamon and she’s a Mudsdale.”

“But, Cinnamon sounds too cute to be a heavy-hitter,” Prompto squeaked.

“Oh, she was cute when she was smaller. She’s  _ much _ bigger now.”

“R-right,” he nodded. A modified paint gun appeared in his hands in a shower of blue crystals. “Just means she’s an easier target.”

“Yup,” Gladio nodded. “You gotta take me out while making it hard for Prompto to hit either you  _ or _ your teammate. Think you can do that?”

Brienne  _ smirked _ . “I think you’re both in over your heads.”

The pokeball opened and in a flash of white light, an eight-foot, one  _ ton _ mud-encrusted horse stood next to Brienne, snorting gently and scratching a small furrow into the earth of the training pit. 

“Y’know, I think I’ve seen it all with you, Shortstack, and you keep on pullin’ surprises out of your hat,” Gladio muttered.

“I’m  _ not _ short!” Brienne bit out in return, mounting Cinnamon in a hop and a swing that got her up the required height. 

Cinnamon whickered and didn’t even budge. 

“Ah-huh. Prove it!” Gladio said, jogging back a respectable distance. “You ready, Prompto?”

“As I’ll ever be!” Prompto returned, running an equal distance in the opposite direction. 

Brienne pressed herself to Cinnamon’s back, eyes locked on Gladio.

“Go!”

A couple ‘pops’ sounded and Brienne heard the paintballs impacting Cinnamon’s hindquarters. She laughed, and whispered into her mount’s ear. 

Cinnamon reared onto her front legs, hung there for a second, and slammed her hind legs down. A shiver of force ran its way down the ground towards Prompto, who squawked and rolled away. Dust and sand threw itself into the air, obscuring vision. 

Warmed up, Cinnamon turned her attentions to Gladio, who had turned back and had his greatsword back and ready to swing. Cinnamon broke into a canter, all one ton of her, each hoofbeat echoing into the ground and shaking the surroundings.

Gladio swung, yelling in effort.

His sword  _ slammed _ into Cinnamon’s side, just below Brienne’s leg. And stopped dead.

Cinnamon stopped face-to-face with Gladio and snorted. Their eyes met.

“Oh crap,” he muttered.

Cinnamon slammed her forehooves into the ground at Gladio’s feet and he went rolling for thirty feet. 

Following at a trot, Brienne craned her head over her Mudsdale’s. “Like I said, well over your head.”

Gladio laughed, laid out flat on the ground, up until Prompto poked him in the side. 

“You okay big guy?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just went for a loop,” he sighed and sat up. “You weren’t kidding.”

Brienne sprawled on top of Cinnamon’s head. “Why would I kid? Mudsdale are known for pulling ten tons at once.”

Both faces paled.

“You asked for my heavy hitter.”

Gladio snorted. “Next time I’ll ask for details.”

~*~

The next time Brienne saw Prompto Argentum, it was in the company of Crown Prince Noctis in the official capacity of Crownsguard, in time for a casual--or as casual as one  _ got _ when one person was a prince and the other a foreign dignitary head--meet&greet. 

She’d been able to pick out more formal clothes from a catalogue given to her on her second day, with quick stops to a tailor less than a few days later. She  _ did _ enjoy a chance to play dress-up, even if in Kalos she had to keep up appearances more than she liked.

All of that meant she was dressed in a soft beige skirt with bright emerald green vines twining up the side, tiny flowers sewn in with colorful crystals. Her top was a muted gold blouse that complimented her hair color, sleeves tight at her shoulders but loose and wide at her wrists. Her shoes were metallic gold, studded with golden crystals and added a bare inch in height with kitten heels. Pretty, more on the formal side of things, but still comfortable. 

It’d taken bullshitting on the spot when asked what her country’s colors were. She hoped gold and green were close. Light purple just happened to be  _ her _ personal color. Speaking of personal color, an ametrine star-shaped pendant sat at her throat, a compliment of King Regis himself. 

Brienne had  _ no idea _ if Noctis knew that.

Regardless, she stood up and curtseyed briefly when Noctis entered the room, and gave him her best comforting smile as she offered a handshake. “Your Highness.”

“Champion Lalonde,” he replied, shake firm. Regardless of the awkwardness she could feel  _ oozing _ off him, Noctis still knew the steps to the politics dance, and at this point that’s all he knew about her, really.

Oh  _ Christ _ he was young. Baby-faced and bright eyed, he watched her through his bangs, just barely cut short enough to see through without poking him. King Regis said he had  _ no idea _ what was coming? None at all? Did he want to tear his son apart?

She bit everything down as ferociously as she could. Let  _ nothing _ show on her face.

“I’m happy you decided to have lunch with me. It’s nice to meet you.” Pleasantries, pleasantries, chew out Regis  _ later… _

“Yeah, well,” he shrugged. “Dad told me something about how you’d be part of Luna’s retinue for the wedding?”

Aaaaand  _ that’s _ her cover story. For now. Lovely. Well, she could run with it. “Mmhmm. I’m standing as her Maid of Honor. Since Niflheim probably won’t let anyone else close enough to her until after the wedding. I’m just there in case of last minute nerves, or someone forgot to get the bride’s bouquet…” she shrugged, with a last-minute joke. “I’m a neutral party, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

“Where  _ is _ Kalos, anyway?”

_ Wow, _ blunt and  _ no _ grace. “Quite far away. I had a rough time getting here.” Not  _ completely _ a lie. Nearly landing on her  _ face _ could be considered a ‘rough time.’

“No retinue?”

She grinned. “My retinue is a bit...easier to transport. Want to meet one of them?”

“Sure,” Noctis nodded, unaware of Prompto’s widening eyes. 

_ Prompto’s _ introduction to her retinue had been a one ton horse. She grinned wider. 

One pokeball came off her belt and her left arm crooked as if to cradle something. White light coalesced in her arm into a cartoonish pink and tan cat with a tail that looked like a  _ cat toy. _

“This is Bel,” she said softly. “He’s a Skitty.”

Bel trilled once at her and then spotted the strangers in the room, freezing in place in fear. Brienne took a step back, and felt Bel relax minutely. 

“Take it slow, and let him sniff your fingers first. He’s had a hard past, but he’s a great cuddle once he’s okay with you,” Brienne advised. 

Noctis’ face opened into something like awe and open curiosity as he slowly upturned a palm and inched it within smelling range of the cat. Prompto, just behind him, was not-so-slowly melting into a puddle of goo on the floor.

Bel sniffed fingers peeking from a fingerless glove, and when no resistance was given, got chin scratches that caused immediate purrs. Noctis smiled, a small thing that was barely a twitch of the lips but  _ felt  _ like giggling, bright joy. 

_ Yeap, definitely chewing out Regis later. _

Brienne acted oblivious. “You might need to save Prompto there,” she pointed with her chin.

“It’s just... _ so cute, _ ” he cooed, hands at his mouth.

Noctis turned to look at his friend. “C’mon, Prom. It’s  _ pink. _ ”

“I know, but…” he gestured helplessly. “Cute.”

Brienne wanted to laugh  _ so hard. _ “Arms up, your Highness,” she said abruptly, interrupting them. 

“Huh--ack!” Noctis tried not to flail as Brienne deposited Bel into his arms.

Bel dug tiny claws into Noctis’ shirt and clung to his front, trilling. 

“Alright, alright, I’ve got you,” he muttered, immediately stroking short pink fur. Purrs once again filled the room. 

Prompto not-so-sneakily brought out a camera, getting Noctis full in the face with the flash.

“Prompto!”

“Sorry not sorry.”

Brienne snuck away to the small lunch table, set for three, and ignored the two friends quietly--or not so quietly--squabbling. They’d collect themselves again in time. It was her fault, really. 

She didn’t know if she’d gotten anywhere with Noctis. But she hoped she’d made a good impression.  She’d need  _ every _ bit of grace he was willing to give her soon.

The whole situation was a mess, and she was only one person.

~*~

Regis looked up as Brienne came  _ storming _ into the throne room, face icy as Shiva’s wrath. She bowed the  _ exact _ amount required from a foreign head dignitary, and then waited for him to finish up. Perfectly quiet, and just as still, glaring a hole into the wall. 

The bottom of his stomach dropped away, overriding the mild heartburn he had from lunch.

Once it was him and Clarus, Brienne raised an eyebrow and gestured with her head towards his private office just off the throne room. He was suddenly very glad that room was soundproofed. He nodded, sighed, and slowly made his way there, followed by his best friend. 

“Permission to speak  _ freely, _ Your Majesty?” she snapped, the second the door closed.

“The look you have on your face is the exact same one Aulea used to give me when I’d done something monumentally dumb, so I do believe I’m about to hear about it regardless. But yes, you have it.”

“You are a well-meaning, kind-hearted  _ idiot, _ ” she spat, hand already rubbing her face. “I just got back from lunch with your son. And he has  _ no idea _ that his life is about to fall apart right under his nose.  _ None! _ ”

“No. He does not,” he said. 

“Do you know what that’s going to  _ do _ to him, when it does? It’s gonna tear him apart into so many pieces and you better  _ hope _ it’s something good that he puts himself back into again.” Brienne threw up her hands as if to throttle the sky. 

He focused on breathing.

“Even worse, how do you think he’s going to  _ trust me _ when he finds out that I knew about all of this? You--! I--!” she bared her teeth at him and groaned.

“...I wanted him to live a normal life. As much as I could give him.” The defeated feeling that he’d beaten back the last couple weeks had returned with her rant.

Brienne froze, forcibly shut her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. She held it a moment, and released slowly. “Regis. You should never have been a king. You’re too damn soft-hearted for it.”

“So Aulea told me. And Cid,” he sighed.

Clarus snorted. “More like he told you you were an idiot, and then let you try to figure out what you’d done wrong yourself,” he teased.

“Yes, well, it worked.”

“Only most of the time,” Clarus riposted. 

“He’s gonna be so  _ angry _ when it happens, Regis. He won’t know why you didn’t tell him. And frankly he’s  _ right. _ It’s his  _ responsibility _ as prince, and later,  _ king _ , to know what’s going on. And to tell him means you respect him enough to know. Even if it hurts. Even if it means he’ll eventually die in the end, because of that damned prophecy.” Brienne pleaded. 

“He’s  _ my son. _ I can’t burden him with this.”

“Don’t you think you should let  _ him _ make that decision?” she replied, voice quiet. “Free will is the greatest gift humanity has. It defies and defeats even gods. As someone who has spoken with gods of time and space,  _ I would know. _ To not tell him takes away his free will.”

He pursed his lips.

Brienne sighed, defeated. “Write him a letter. The things you can’t tell him now,” she offered in a relent. “You too, Clarus, since Gladio’s going with him. Write it and send it to someone you trust outside Insomnia, to be delivered to him after it all goes to hell. Or have me do it, since I’ll be watching them personally. Say it all, with as few walls as possible between your pen and him. It’s the last damned chance you’ll get. Because you’re not  _ just _ his father. You’re his king. And it means you owe him that.” She buried her face in her hands. 

“I’ll consider it.”

Clarus sighed and shook his head. 

“Very well,” she ran a hand through her hair, ruining the delicate styling. 

“You may go,” he motioned with his hand, damned fucking protocol. 

She bowed briefly, retreated backward two steps, and spun away, closing the door behind her with a click. 

“She definitely had a good point, Regis.” Clarus hummed. 

“I know. I just...I can’t.” Everything hurt, inside and out.

“I know. Think about what you’re going to write.  _ I _ have letters to write to Gladio and Iris. And are you going to write anything to Scientia?” Clarus raised an eyebrow. 

“It would be prudent,” he nodded. His second son in all but blood. Ignis had done  _ so much _ for Noctis. And would do so much more. 

For a moment, he wished he could ally Lucis with Kalos. Brienne must rule it well.

~*~

A knock on his door at ten o’clock at night. Unusual, but not a total surprise. Ignis opened his door to Brienne, clothes more casual than he’d ever seen, a t-shirt with a yellow mouse-like creature on the front, shapeless jeans, and flip-flops, of all things. She looked  _ tired. _

“Sorry for the late call,” she said, sheepish. She didn’t meet his eyes. “Can I come in?”

He frowned, but stepped back. “Certainly.” He hadn’t done much in the way of housekeeping for his own place, packing up Noct’s things took precedence, but it was clean enough for guests. 

Brienne’s flip-flops made tiny little clap sounds across the tile on the floor, and she tugged at her hair, none-too-gently from the looks of it. Was  _ that _ her anxiety tell? No, we cannot be having this.

“I’ll start tea. Make yourself at home,” he offered over his shoulder, already bustling into the kitchen. His fingers gently brushed over his collection, and he decided on a white herbal tea, to compensate for the late hour. He still had some paperwork to do, but he didn’t think Brienne needed the caffeine this late at night. 

By the time he made it over to the sofa in the sitting room, he found Brienne sitting slumped in the right-hand corner, arm over her eyes and legs crossed at the knee. She only perked up when his weight settled next to her, slowly sitting up.

He poured for two. “Sugar or honey?”

“Honey, please.”

He nodded. 

He let the silence grow briefly. “Do you wish to tell me what is on your mind, or did you simply come to  _ sweeten _ my night.”

Brienne processed the question and groaned. “ _ Ignis. _ ”

He chuckled, and passed her her cup. She wrapped both hands around it, savoring the warmth.

He let his lips twitch up into a small grin. “You know I can’t pass up an opportuni _ tea _ for a pun.”

Her eyes shut tight. “Oh gods I’m so glad you haven’t met Hawkie. The puns would never end.”

“He prefers puns as well?”

A long, world-weary sigh escaped her lips. “He has a preference for  _ fish _ puns.”

“Then it’s a good thing he’s on another world. He and Noct would get along  _ swimmingly. _ ”

“ _ How _ is it I constantly find the little-shits of the universe?” she muttered, and took a sip of her tea.

“Birds of a feather, I believe the phrase goes…”

She glared at him, even as she fought laughter. 

Ah, there we go. Cheered up at least a  _ little _ bit.

“Now, what has you stopping by my tiny piece of the citadel at this hour?” He finally took a sip of his tea, and let the taste of jasmine soothe the start of the headache he had. 

Brienne leaned back into the sofa, tea cradled carefully. “His Majesty has me going on a mission tomorrow morning, as a favor. And he also believes it will help me find some of the missing Skarmory in the region.”

He nodded.

“So by the time I get back, you will already be on your way to Altissia. Wanted to say goodbye beforehand. I’m leaving at the crack of dawn.”

Something inside him warmed. “I’m flattered you thought of me.”

Brienne shot him a  _ look. _ “Friends, remember?” She huffed as if offended. 

“Of course,” he said, unaffected. She was such a joy to gently tease. “But that wouldn’t have you tense the way you are now.”

Her head turned slowly towards him.

“You’re an open book, Brienne,” he said flatly.

She snorted and nodded in agreement. “I  _ have _ been told that once or twice,” she sighed. “I…” Her voice left her, mouth making shapes but no sound leaving them. “King Regis told me something very upsetting not long after I arrived here.”

She put up a hand to forestall him. 

“All the people that need to know, do. And I cannot tell anyone else. But. You’ll learn about it soon enough. And.” Her face scrunched up as if she was in pain. 

He hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder. “If those who know are all that  _ need _ to know, then that is enough. I am not worried.”

She leaned into the touch, her hands settling into her lap with the tea cup cradled between them. “I need you to know that  _ when _ you find out, that I’ll have done everything in my power to make it a little less horrible.”

He blinked down at her. “It is that terrible?”

Her voice cracked. “Yes,” she whispered.

He quickly took her cup from her, and set both hers and his on the table. “I will do so,” he hummed, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I promise you.”

She hung onto him, hand grasping onto his where it sat on her opposite shoulder. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Know that when news breaks that I’ll be coming as fast as I can, okay?”

“I will.” 

What  _ was _ it that had her so distraught?

She relaxed in measures, first her shoulders under his arm, then her neck, then her back as she slumped into his side. He waited in the quiet for her breathing to even out, thumb rubbing up and down the top of her shoulder.

She broke away before he thought she was ready to do so, rubbing at her face and giving him the strongest smile she could. “Thanks for listening,” she said.

“Of course.” He gave her a comforting one back. 

“Be safe on your trip out, huh? Don’t do anything ridiculous,” she admonished.

“More like ‘Keep Noctis, Prompto and Gladio from doing something ridiculous,’” he snorted. 

“I dunno, Mr. I-kick-daggers-into-my-opponent, you’re just as much of a contestant.”

He sniffed at her, mock-hurt.

~*~

The haze outside of Insomnia’s walls shot visibility for any real distance out to nil. Brienne sat behind Crowe on her motorcycle, helmet already on, waiting for the taller woman to start the engine. 

A second van, one colored darker than the one they had just left rumbled up on the path they were about to take, and stopped at the intersection. 

They both stared at it steadily as the engine quieted to idle. 

Something smells fishy, and it wasn’t just the dust up her nose.

The front passenger window rolled down and the glint of  _ something _ caught Brienne’s eye. The bottom of her stomach dropped out.

“Get down!” she yelled, wrapping her arms around Crowe’s middle and pulling her over the other side of the motorcycle as something went  _ twang-pock _ over their heads. 

Crowe yelped as the weight of the motorcycle came down on her leg. “What the  _ fuck _ was that?”

“Gun. Maybe with silencer,” she grumbled, and pulled herself out from under the ‘cycle, ducking as another shot came their way and missed. 

Crowe  _ hissed _ . “We don’t have any cover here!”

Another bullet, this time up against a Barrier spell quickly flung up from Crowe. The bullets stopped. 

“We can get them if you distract them. I thought you  _ liked _ fire?” Brienne bit back. 

Crowe smirked, a grin that promised lots of destruction. “Yes, yes I do,” she agreed, and chucked a fireball at the van.

It landed on the front hood and started to eat through the metal. Three figures abandoned the van in a hurry as Brienne broke from Crowe and started to run  _ at _ them in a crouch. 

Two started to run for Crowe, who had to block and exchange fire with changing targets. She seemed to relish the challenge, cackling in glee. 

Brienne dodge-rolled away from a thrown dagger, only to be met face-to-face with a figure in a familiar black uniform, fading blue crystalline shards in the air as they warped right in front of her. 

They held a gun in front of her face, finger on the trigger. “No dice, ‘Champion,’” they smirked, and pulled the trigger.

“Lalonde!” Crowe shouted.

Blue light flashed up between the two of them, bouncing the bullet right back to the shooter, where it got them in the gut. They doubled over and hit the ground, gasping. 

Brienne snarled and stood, hands still glowing blue. “Fucker,” she spat, and kicked him in the head. He passed out, bleeding heavily. 

One of the two Crowe had been dueling turned to start shooting at Brienne and she pulled her shield of blue light back up, watching the bullets ricochet off in different directions. This made it easy for Crowe, who fatality electrocuted the first and tackled the one who was trying and failing to shoot Brienne. 

“Luche!  _ What the fuck?! _ ” Crowe snarled, as she got him in a headlock. “Why the hell are you shooting at us?”

Brienne jogged over and took his gun from him, tossing it away and quickly disarmed him of the rest of his weapons. She kept a few of the knives.

“You’re working for a king that sold your family out to the Niffs. Don’t you want  _ revenge _ ?” ‘Luche’ spat out, through the press on his neck. 

Crowe rolled her eyes and tightened her hold. Luche choked. “It’s the Niffs that fucked them over in the  _ first _ place, Luche. Who sent you?”

He went silent.

Brienne stared at him, and then grabbed his arm. Seething  _ hate _ ripped through her, along with desperation and a  _ lot _ of immediate panic from the headlock. But hate held dominion over all.

She let go. “He’s not going to tell us,” she muttered, and rubbed her arms. She wanted a  _ shower. _

Crowe grit her teeth. “Last chance to spill, Luche.”

Nothing.

The sickening, dull  _ crack _ Luche’s neck made as Crowe broke it echoed through the open wasteland. Brienne spun away from the sight and promptly emptied her guts on the road, hands on her knees. 

_ Fuck, fuck, fuck..! _

She shuddered, and only flinched the tiniest bit when Crowe’s hand landed on her back, rubbing up and down. 

“First time seeing someone die up close like that?”

“...Yeah,” she said, and then spat out a last little bit of bile. “First time seeing someone die violently at all, really.”

“Aw fuck, you’re green.” Crowe muttered. “Not much in the way of wars like this where you’re from, huh?”

“No. Last one was three hundred years ago.” Brienne stood slowly, swallowing air. “The other one’s still alive, maybe. Gut wound.”

“Get the bike back up, I’ll take care of it.” Crowe said softly, stalking off. 

Brienne yanked the motorcycle back to standing, glancing over it  _ very carefully _ for damage, and tried not to flinch too hard when another gunshot rang out. 

Crowe put the gun in the back of her waistband and dusted her hands off. The crackling of the fire on the van was the only real sound as she approached. “Someone’s leaked the mission. Who knows about it? I know Drautos knows, and his Majesty…”

“Regis is the one who assigned me to this, through Cor, but they would’ve only told Drautos…” Brienne trailed off and met Crowe’s eyes.

“Drautos,” they said at the same time. 

“Fuck!” Crowe spat, and started prowling in a circle. 

“Use my phone,” Brienne said, offering up the piece of technology. “It’s got the Marshall’s number in it, and there’s no  _ way _ he’s traitor.” If only because he knows the worst is coming.

“We’ve got to report directly,” Crowe shook her head.

“We don’t exactly have  _ time _ before the treaty. And I sure as fuck don’t know my way to Tenebrae.”

She already wanted to find the deepest hole she could and yank a rock over the top.  _ Fuck _ , her nightmares were going to be all sorts of fun again.

Crowe was quick to pull up the number, fist on her hip as it rang, Brienne keeping a watch on their surroundings. 

“Marshall, Glaive Altius reporting. Yes, Champion Lalonde is fine. A little shell-shocked, but recovering.” A pause. “We were ambushed at the drop site for the mission, sir. Three other Kingsglaive, Furia, Arra, and Lazarus.”

Another pause, and even Brienne could hear Cor’s cursing. 

“Sir, we’ve come to the conclusion that the leak is Drautos. Yes, sir, all dead.” More silence. “Yes sir.” She handed the phone back to Brienne. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Lalonde,” she said.

_ “You’re alright?” _

“Yeah. I’ve got new nightmare fuel though.”

_ “That’s normal. You’ll make it,” _ Cor sounded understanding.  _ “Drautos knows about you. If he’s the leak…” _

“Then it’ll be a  _ little _ harder for me to do what you want me to. You  _ still _ haven’t seen everything.”

Cor snorted.  _ “Right. Your orders don’t change. Get Lady Lunafreya into Insomnia safely.” _

“Yes, Cor. Can do.”

_ “Good. We’ll take it from here. See you when you get back.” _

The line went dead.

Brienne pocketed the phone and readjusted her helmet. “We gotta get going.”

“Atta girl,” Crowe nodded, swinging a foot and gunning the ‘cycle’s engine. Brienne wrapped her arms around Crowe’s middle and picked her feet up off the ground. It sped off, Crowe expertly weaving around the bodies and burning van. 

It was five minutes before Brienne heard a beep in her helmet, the mic connecting her to Crowe turning on. 

“What was that blue shield?”

Brienne tapped the button to respond. “Aura shield. Made out of my life force. Bullets from handguns don’t take much to deflect.”

“So it’s like magic,” Crowe shrugged.

“Sorta,” Brienne wiggled her hand up and down where Crowe could see it, then went back to hugging her waist. “It doesn’t do nearly as much, but it’s useful. I can withstand up to small explosions at point blank with it, and throw it offensively hard enough to put holes in cement walls. Magic’s more multi-use.”

“What’s your limit?”

“I  _ can _ drain myself to death with it, but I’d rather not,” she drawled. 

“So, like magic,” Crowe repeated, a smile in her voice. “Noted.”

“I swear to god, me and little shits…”

“Which god?”

“None of yours,” she snapped back. 

Crowe laughed. 

They drove on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am absolutely unapologetic for the cliffhanger.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luna is spirited away in the night, and Insomnia comes to its last days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the last chapter you're gonna get in October, I'll post the next mid-November, sometime after the 10th. Yeah, I'mma make you _wait_ for Insomnia's fall. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Brienne and Crowe lay huddled in a large bush on Fenestala Manor grounds, staring at the patrol pattern.

“Sooo, how’re we gonna do this?” Brienne whispered in Crowe’s ear.

“I’m working on it,” she replied. 

It was full night, but there were enough electric lights on the grounds to repel daemons, except for the human-shaped ones walking on the ground in suits of clanking armor. 

“Where’s the lady’s room?” Brienne asked.

“Fourth floor, around the corner to the back,” Crowe sighed. “Getting in is the easy part. It’s getting out without causing the whole manor to go up in arms that’s the hard part.”

Brienne blinked. “Can you warp up there?”

“...Yeah. Easy.”

“And then get into her room and hide until she gets in there?”

Crowe gave her a  _ look. _ “It’s one in the godsdamned morning. She’s probably asleep. In her room.”

“Hey, I’m a fucking night owl. If I was being held against my will, sleep would be  _ hard, _ ” Brienne bit out, shuffling a hand to her belt. “Take Kanaya with you. She can teleport. Get in, grab the Lady, and ‘port back to me. I’ll make my way off Manor grounds.”

“ _ Teleport? _ ” Crowe’s jaw dropped. Oh that just wasn’t fair.

“Yeah. Bit like warping, except don’t need to throw a weapon first, and distance is nigh unlimited. Kanaya can lock onto my mental location and bring you both. It’ll be hard on her, her not knowing the place first, but it’ll work.”

“Will she listen to me?” Crowe took the shrunken pokeball. “And how do I work this?”

“Yes, and just hit the button twice. Once to expand, once more to release.” Brienne grabbed her wrist  _ tight. _ “Do  _ not _ let that get damaged while Kanaya’s in it. Getting the ‘ball crushed will kill Kanaya as surely as a headshot does a human.”

“Understood,” Crowe nodded, and Brienne released her wrist. 

“I’ll get as far as I can from the grounds. Give me fifteen minutes, and then go,” Brienne whispered.

“Good luck,” Crowe said, and watched as Brienne waited for an opening in the Magitek soldiers, and dashed out. To the giant tree with a hole in the trunk, another bush, stone statue, and then the wall around the manor itself. She climbed it nimbly, and rolled over the other side. 

Crowe started counting in her head, and eyed the red and white ball in her hand. It was  _ tiny, _ maybe the size of a ping-pong ball. She thought about putting it in a pouch on her hip or a pocket, but Brienne’s warning had her dropping it down into her bra instead. Couldn’t get crushed too easily there. Besides, if she got caught and pinned, it was over anyway. 

It sat there like a cold stone, slowly warming. She scrunched up tighter in the bush she hid in, waiting for the time to pass, counting Magitek soldiers. 

_ Damn, _ it was a lot.

Aaaaand that was Ravus Nox Fleuret, doing his own rounds.  _ Fuck. _

_ Fifty-eight Leviathan, fifty-nine Leviathan, sixty Leviathan! _

Fifteen minutes gone, Crowe waited for the briefest break in the patrol, crouched, and threw a dagger as high as she could onto the manor wall, warping after it. She dangled from the wall, a sitting duck if anyone happened to look up, and started making her way around the wall of the manor, shuffling inch by inch, her feet balanced on a tiny ledge. Yanking out her dagger from the wall made less noise than she expected, but she still froze and waited for someone or something to point, and alarms to blare.

Nothing. 

She crawled around a corner, and sighed as she saw Lady Lunafreya’s bay door windows not far away. She had a  _ tiny _ patio, but that’s all Crowe needed.

A  _ thunk _ as her dagger landed smack-dab in the middle of the patio, and then she followed after it.

Peering in through the glass, Lunafreya  _ was _ in bed, but tossing and turning, implying she wasn’t deeply asleep, or not asleep at all.

Huh. Lalonde was right. 

She tapped  _ gently _ on the glass, and Lunafreya shot up and twisted to stare at her. She grinned sheepishly, and pointed at the lock on the windows. 

Lunafreya rushed to get up, and the windows opened with a quiet ‘click’ sound. 

“Are you from Lucis?” Lunafreya asked.

“Glaive Altius, my lady,” she bowed briefly. “Ready to get out of here?”

Lunafreya smiled softly. “Let me get something else on. I’m already packed.”

“Good.” Crowe closed the windows behind her and slipped into the shadows as Lunafreya changed, and put her ear to the door. The stomps of Magitek soldiers were the only things that made it past the door, and no alarm was raised. 

“How are we to leave?” Lunafreya asked suddenly, from  _ right behind her _ .

Crowe jumped, and nearly swore out loud.

“My apologies,” Lunafreya dipped her head.

She waved it off. “I needed that. And it’ll be a little unconventional. Do not startle, my Lady. Kanaya will not harm us.”  _ I hope. _

“Kanaya?”

She reached into her bra, ignoring Luna’s startled and mildly embarrassed look, and pulled out the pokeball. 

_ One push to expand, one to release... _ White light coalesced into the tall, ethereal being Lalonde named ‘Kanaya.’ Intelligent red eyes scanned the room, and not finding her partner, turned the unsettling gaze to Crowe.

**_“Where is Brienne?”_ **

Lunafreya gasped, awe-inspired, but kept quiet. Crowe startled at the words inside her head. 

“Lalonde didn’t tell me you could  _ talk, _ ” she muttered to herself. “She is getting as far from here as possible. You’re our escape route.”

Red eyes narrowed and then she spun around, glancing briefly out the window.  **_“Ah. I understand.”_ ** She returned to them both, and gripped surprisingly tight to both Crowe and Lunafreya’s shoulders.  **_“Hold tight. This will be disorienting.”_ **

“How…?” Lunafreya said again, before the world twisted and dissolved into nothing.

It blinked back into existence almost immediately. Crowe’s stomach twisted and Lunafreya immediately bent over and threw up. 

Lalonde approached carefully and put a hand on Lunafreya’s shoulder as she recovered. “Easy. Breathe through it.” She looked up at Kanaya. “Good job, sweetheart.”

**_“Sure, mom.”_ **

Crowe stared.  _ “Mom? _ You’re her  _ mom? _ ”

“She hatched from an egg, and I raised her. Pokeball, please.”

Crowe quickly returned the device, still the size of a baseball, into Lalonde’s waiting hand. 

Brienne smiled, gave Kanaya a kiss on the head, and lithe figure disappeared into red light. The ball was shrunken and returned to the belt. 

“What...who?” Lunafreya looked very lost.

“Champion Brienne Lalonde, of Kalos,” Brienne introduced, bowing sharply at the waist.

Lunafreya took in the sight of the woman in purple and unusual armor, and nodded. “Lady Lunafreya, of Tenebrae. Gentiana  _ did _ say there was a new force in the world.”

Lalonde raised an eyebrow, but said nothing of it. “We’ve got to get going, we’re not as far as I’d like for now, and you’re the one who knows where we’re going,” she said, and popped two different balls off her belt. “Athena and Nyx will not hurt you, Lady Lunafreya, no matter how fierce they look.”

“If they are anything like...Kanaya? I look forward to it.”

Crowe fought giggles. The Nyx thing was never going to get old. She loved it. 

Two white lights--they had to get going fast, this would summon daemons like nothing else--formed into the two flyers Crowe was familiar with, one of which they had used to get here in the night, instead of having to dodge daemons or bunk down in a haven. 

“Crowe, you’re on Nyx.” Lalonde said, already getting up on the owl-shaped Athena. “Lady Lunafreya?” she said, holding a hand out.

“Both of you, call me Luna,” she said, and took Lalonde’s hand. She was easily pulled up.

“Okay, I know Athena can see in the dark, but can Nyx?”

“They’re both nocturnal, Crowe. They can see better than  _ we _ can, during the day.”

“Good enough,” she nodded.

“Hold on tight, Luna,” Lalonde said. “Up, girls! As fast as you can!”

They took off, leaving Crowe’s stomach behind.

~*~

They flew as long as Champion Lalonde’s flyers could take them. It got them well within Lucis proper before Athena and Nyx both started showing signs of fatigue. 

“We can spend the rest of the night at a haven,” Glaive Altius said, as they slowly lost altitude.

“Okay. You know where one is?” Champion Lalonde called over.

“There,” Glaive Altius called out. “Entethina haven. Safe from daemons and in the middle of nowhere.”

Champion Lalonde tilted slightly and both flyers followed her lead, landing gently within the circle of glowing runes that meant no daemon could cross. 

Luna slipped off her feathery ride and stumbled, not used to such a position for hours on end, in cold air. Glaive Altius steadied her as she got her feet under her. 

Champion Lalonde tended to her two creatures, stroking them gently and pulling  _ large _ berries out of her side-bag. Athena quickly ate hers and then disappeared into red light. Nyx savored hers, squatting down on her haunches and holding hers with both ‘hands,’ eating each with careful precision. Soon the large bat-like creature happily settled down, wings tucked around her snout, and started to snore. 

Some kind soul had left a pile of firewood waiting for the next occupants of the haven, and Glaive Altius quickly lit it with a snap of her fingers. Orange light flickered over all of them, and Luna sighed. 

“Thank you for taking me from Tenebrae. I had planned to get out another way, but…”

“You were waylaid. It is not your fault, my Lady,” Altius said, sitting down against a rock, warming her hands by the fire. “It’s going to be a short rest of the night. Get some rest?”

“Call me Luna,  _ please, _ ” she reminded them both. “You stole me straight out of my room. Formality is the least of our worries.”

“Someone else gets it!” Champion Lalonde crowed. “Call me Brienne. It’s nice to meet you.”

Luna nodded her head in greeting. “You as well. I have never seen creatures as such. They are quite awe-inspiring.”

“Nyx is a Noivern, a type of dragon. She’s also a bat, but acts much more like a cat, as you can see,” she hummed.

Said dragon-bat woke up enough to snort at her. Luna giggled. 

“If we’re going informal, then I’m Crowe. And you should get some sleep, Luna. It’s still a long journey to Insomnia. We can’t fly in light of day.”

Luna shrugged. “If you insist,” she sighed. She was very awake, actually. It had been  _ years _ since she’d been allowed outside of the mansion without a full magitek guard, and now here she was in the middle of the Lucis wilds, with just two people as her guard. 

And the excitement had her feeling chatty. 

Brienne sidled up next to her, almost shoulder-to-shoulder, and smiled at her. “What did you think of the flight?”

“Oh, it was  _ lovely, _ ” she clapped her hands together. “I haven’t been able to see the stars so well in  _ years, _ even if it was so cold so high up. I’ll remember it for as long as I live. And so smooth! How did you tame such a creature?”

The happy gaze of memory came over Brienne’s face. “I met Athena as a Hoothoot,” she began. “She was ‘bout the size of a basketball, and much more  _ round. _ I was making my way through one of Sinnoh’s forests, and she decided my head made a good  _ nest, _ ” she huffed, in a fondly amused way. “And wouldn’t leave no matter how much I picked her up off my head. Kinda had no choice but to keep her. And then she evolved,” she paused at Luna’s very obviously confused look. “It’s more like a metamorphosis, but evolved is the colloquialism, into the form you saw tonight. Now she just preens my hair whenever she’s feeling overly affectionate.”

“Does such a thing happen often where you are from? I have not heard of Kalos, or Sinnoh.” Gentiana had not been very forthcoming with information, but that was normal for the Messenger. She’d gotten used to it. Mostly.

“That’s ‘cause they’re regions from another world,” Brienne said bluntly. Luna’s jaw dropped open.  _ Oh. _ “I kinda landed in the Citadel’s throne room. Frankly I’m surprised word of me hasn’t gotten farther.” She shrugged. “But to answer your question, yes. It does. Not as bluntly as Athena did to me, but often enough it’s seen as amusing more than anything else.”

“My,” she hummed. 

“Nyx stole fruit from the berry farm. Lots of it,” Brienne snorted. “She’s happy to stay as long as I kept her fed in berries.”

Luna giggled.

“Hey, Crowe, how’re we getting into Insomnia unseen? Especially with the  _ leak? _ ” Brienne asked.

“I have  _ no _ idea. We’re on the north side of Lucis, so we can keep going north once dawn hits until we meet water, and commandeer a boat, and then get to Insomnia proper, but getting into the Citadel…” she shrugged. 

“If you can handle another teleport, getting into the Citadel won’t be a problem. We’ll need to get closer to the city, though,” Brienne replied, looking thoughtful.

“You have something?” Crowe tilted her head.

“Cinnamon until we hit water, Esperanza until we hit Insomnia, and then teleport into the office just off the throne room,” Brienne said, putting up fingers for each step.

“And Esperanza is…?” Crowe asked.

“A Lapras. Pokemon practically tailor made to transport people across water. And she can do it fast if we need to ask her.” Brienne said.

“Perfect,” Crowe crooned.

Luna sighed and tried to get comfortable on the solid ground. The thought of another teleport did not sit well with her, and she wanted more sleep if that was going to happen again. 

Brienne gently patted her shoulder. “If you want to curl up with Nyx, she’ll be more comfortable to sleep with than the ground will.”

Luna raised an eyebrow.

“She’s full of berries. She’ll start purring the second you start to cuddle. Here,” Brienne stood and made her way to the dragon-bat, who only woke up when shaken slightly. “Let Luna cuddle?”

Nyx shot her a side-eye, and then sat up and opened her wings.

“C’mon, you can tuck your head against her fur ruff,” Brienne offered.

Luna approached slowly. Nyx made no aggressive move against her, and she slowly laid down until she was tucked against wing-webbing and a warm, softly scaled body.

And then Nyx began to  _ purr. _ The soft rumbling helped Luna relax almost instantly, and her head flopped into even softer fur. Even her scales were soft. Luna began to rub up and down Nyx’s body, which caused the purrs to get even louder. Wings closed around her as she grew drowsy.

“Yup. Perfect cuddle buddies.”

Luna knew no more that night.

~*~

“That was  _ smooth _ ,” Crowe complimented.

Brienne shrugged. “She looked like she needed a friend. And if trouble comes calling, Nyx can have her in the air in seconds.”

“Also a good point.” Crowe nodded. “Why’d his Majesty send me again?” she said jokingly.

“One, the bullshit that happened just as we left,” she pointed out. “And two, I have no idea where I’m going.”

“Both very good points. We’ll make a good Kingsglaive out of you yet.” Crowe said.

“I’m not staying  _ that _ long.”

“Don’t care. Mine now. Always wanted a little sister.” Crowe laughed.

“How d’you know I’m  _ younger _ than you?” she whined.

“Sure as hell  _ look _ younger,” Crowe pointed out.

Brienne gave her an irritated look. “I’m twenty-eight.”

Crowe’s jaw dropped. “Oh. Wow.”

She sighed, a little defeated. “Guess this means I can’t flirt at you.”

Crowe shrugged. “Only if you don’t want to.”

“Oh thank  _ fuck, _ ” she swore. “Because hugging you from behind made it  _ really _ hard to keep my thoughts PG rated  _ or _ focused on the mission. You are super-hot and have a lot of  _ very nice _ muscles under those clothes.”

She watched as a line of pink colored itself across Crowe’s face, and grinned. Ding! Flirting a success.

Crowe pointed to the spot next to her with her chin. “C’mon. Get some sleep. I’ll even be your pillow.”

Brienne gratefully scrambled over and leaned on her shoulder. “This works?”

“Sure.”

“What about you?” she asked, yawning.

“I’ll keep watch, get some sleep on Cinnamon. You can repay the favor of being hugged from behind,” Crowe snickered.

Brienne groaned and huffed, but didn’t move her head from Crowe’s shoulder. Sleep fell over her not long after.

~*~

Luna kept what little was in her stomach down this time as they arrived in Regis’ private office.

Kanaya swayed as the energy for the teleport left her, and Brienne plied her with chesto and leppa berries until she felt better. Soon after she returned her, and then huffed, hands on her hips.

“Now what? We’re in Insomnia, in the heart of the Citadel, and no-one’s the wiser,” she said.

Crowe shrugged. “Go say hi?”

“That’ll go over well with security,” she snarked.

“We  _ are _ security, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“We left a whole day ago! They still think we’re gone.”

“Ladies,” Luna said softly.

Both Crowe and Brienne turned, only to see Regis and Clarus flanking Luna, impressed expressions on both their faces. 

“Oh.” Brilliant, Brienne. Just what you needed to say.

Crowe dropped into a salute and bow. “Your Majesty, Lord Amicitia.”

Brienne grinned. “Sup?”

Clarus, of all people, laughed. “Oh, Niflheim isn’t going to know a  _ whit _ what happened when they discover the Oracle, gone from her bed!”

“It certainly makes things a little easier on our front,” Regis agreed. “At ease, Sir Altius. And a job well done, both of you.” He turned to Luna. “Welcome, my dear. It has been too long.”

“Twelve years,” she smiled sweetly.

“Too long,” he repeated. “I’ll have Clarus show you to your rooms. You can rest and refresh yourself there. I’m sure the travel has been difficult, if quick.”

“I thank you for your hospitality.” Luna bowed her head.

“And now that  _ that’s _ taken care of, Clarus?”

“On it,” he nodded, and pulled out a cell phone as Luna waited.

Regis turned back to the two of them. “I need you both to be  _ invisible _ for the next two days, until the signing. We had the dropoff site cleaned as soon as we could, and we’ve kept Drautos in the dark about it all. He suspects something, but until he has evidence of anything, either way, he can’t do anything. Clarus is calling Cor right now to keep him busy at the training grounds so you can disappear into the city. Sir Altius, do you have somewhere quiet to go?”

“I do, sir. Not many non-Galahdians go into that sector. They’ll never hear a peep about me.” Crowe nodded.

“Good. Lalonde, I want you to go with her. I have a few servants I can trust to keep this  _ absolutely _ quiet, but someone will talk eventually. I’ll have Clarus retrieve your bag and bring it here.”

She nodded. “And Drautos himself? The day of the treaty?”

He glanced at Crowe. “Tell  _ no one _ of this.”

She nodded, eyes wide. 

“He’ll be your target. Even if...he’s still committed treason, and wouldn’t go down easily. It will be your job to take him out.”

Brienne pursed her lips and nodded. 

“The less information we can give Drautos, the better. And it means giving as little information to the rest of the ‘Glaive, as well.” Regis rubbed at his face. “Astrals, it’s going so fast.”

Clarus patted his shoulder. “I’ll be back before long. Lady Luna, my dear?”

Luna hummed and gladly took his arm. “Your Majesty, Glaive Altius, Champion Lalonde,” she bowed her head once and left the room with Clarus. Crowe bowed briefly, and Brienne waved, a grin on her face. 

Regis snickered. “Done with the formality, are we?”

“Do I really need it at this point?” she asked, voice dry.

A full laugh broke free as he leaned on his desk. “No, no you don’t my dear.”

Her face slowly fell as she considered the day and time. “Prince Noctis and his retinue left this morning, am I right?”

“They did.” Regis sat heavily into his office chair. 

Brienne nodded and sighed, running a hand through her hair. “The avalanche has begun, it is far too late for the pebbles to vote,” she muttered, to herself. 

“What’s going on?” Crowe asked, more to Brienne than her king. 

Brienne eyed Crowe, and then looked to Regis. He frowned, and then shook his head.

“Sorry, Crowe, can’t tell you yet.”

“Alright.” She shuffled in place. “Your Majesty, permission to speak?”

“Granted.”

“I want to bring in Nyx Ulric and Libertus Ostium in that we’re back.”

“And you are so sure they’re not traitors? We still haven’t quite figured out how deep into the ‘Glaive the leak goes.” He folded his hands on the desk in front of him.

“Nyx would cut his own  _ arms _ off before betraying you, Your Majesty, and I know Libertus. He might get angry, but he wouldn’t do anything dumb.” Crowe said, confident.

“I’ve met Nyx Ulric,” Brienne added. “Shook his hand. Didn’t sense anything off about him, besides a strong touch of PTSD. Lazarus...he  _ oozed _ hatred and rage and a sort of undirected need to destroy everything around him.” She tugged at her hair as she tried to define it. “It was unsettling. Drautos unsettled me the same way.”

Crowe stared at her.

“I’ll tell you later,” Brienne muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

Regis stared hard at Crowe long enough that Brienne could sense  _ through her walls _ that she was starting to get anxious. “Very well, permission to tell them both.”

Crowe sighed and her shoulders slumped minutely. 

“Can you both get out of here the same way you got in? I don’t know how…” Regis trailed off.

“If Crowe has a strong enough mental image of where she wants to go, Kanaya can teleport us there.”

“ _ Teleport?! _ ” Regis stood half-way up out of his seat.

Brienne grinned. “You ain’t seen  _ half _ of what my full team can do, Regis.”

“It’s a trip, your Majesty,” Crowe added. “It’s how we got Lady Luna out. Warped up to her room, grabbed her, had Kanaya teleport us to Brienne, who had already made her way off the grounds and away from the manor. Apparently it can work over fairly long distances. We teleported in from outside the Wall.”

Regis fell back into his seat, hard. “Well, damn. Might make a bigger boom after all.”

Clarus returned at this moment, shutting the door quickly behind him, bag in-hand. 

“Clarus! Kanaya can teleport! They came in from outside the Wall!” Regis said, as if this was lighthearted and happy.

“ _ What?! _ You cannot…” he glanced at Brienne and sighed heavily. “I guess you can. Alright then.” He handed the bag to her. “Here you are. Did not take you long to be as messy as the Prince, did it?”

She blushed, heat flushing her cheeks. “Bad habit I haven’t broken yet.”

Clarus chuckled. “Get going, then. I’m sure you don’t want to spend more time in here.”

“Your Majesty, Lord Amicitia,” Crowe bowed again.

Brienne waved, and brought Kanaya out once more.

**_“Where to this time, Mom?”_ **

She motioned to Crowe. “Location’s in her head.”

Both Regis and Clarus startled. “She talks?” Clarus said, more to himself.

The evil grin on Brienne’s face wasn’t going away any time  _ soon. _

Crowe held her hand out for Kanaya to take.

**_“I need you to focus on the destination end-point. Pretend you are standing in the exact center of where you want to land. The sight, the sound, the smell, the general feeling of the place you get, that slight sixth sense all humans have of safe-not safe, your memories of it.”_ **

“I’ve got it,” Crowe said softly.

**_“Yes, yes you do. Quite clearly. Good. Hold onto that.”_ ** She held out a hand for Brienne.  **_“Mom?”_ **

“Yes, dear. One moment.” She met Regis’ eyes. “I’ll teleport back in here dawn of the signing, just as the sun rises. That work?”

“Perfectly,” Regis nodded.

“Later, then,” she hummed, and took Kanaya’s hand.

The world dissolved and spun and reformed, different. A dark room, smelling faintly of mold and beer, and the burn of strong spices. One window let light hit an old armchair in front of a TV that looked nearly as old. 

Kanaya returned herself. 

Brienne shrugged her camper pack onto one shoulder. “So, where are we?”

“Nyx’s place,” Crowe shrugged, and flopped down into the armchair, yawning. “So, tell me,  _ how _ did you sense all that off Luche? And Nyx?”

Brienne shifted uncomfortably in place. “I’m an empath.”

“A  _ what _ now?” Crowe narrowed her eyes.

“Empath. I can read the emotions of others, even if their body language and face is completely blank. If it’s strong enough, I can read it at a distance, or from across a building.”

“Oh. Fuck.” Crowe swore.

“Don’t,” she said, voice hoarse. She looked away. “It’s  _ rude _ to do it to people who don’t know, at least on purpose, I have mental walls for a reason, but it’s hard to ignore at physical touch.”

“...Which is why you touched Luche on the arm before…”

“Yeah,” she nodded.

“And me? All those times you touched me?” Crowe asked. 

“...I was too busy trying not to blush, frankly,” she said.

Crowe snorted. “I see.” She eventually sighed. “Gimme your phone.”

“What?” 

“Gimme your phone!” she said, more insistently. “Mine might be bugged.”

“Oh. Okaaaaay…?” She handed the rectangle of plastic and metal over, and watched as Crowe tapped away at buttons.

“Might as well make yourself comfortable, it’ll be a while before Nyx is off duty for the day.”

Brienne stared. “You’re texting him?”

“Yup, ‘bout time you caught on.” Crowe tossed the phone back. 

Brienne eyed the sent text.  _ Lil’ sister’s at your place. Bring Lib. _

It didn’t take long for a reply to come in, with a ding. 

_ I don’t know this number. If this is a prank, it’s a bad one. _

Brienne sighed and repocketed it. “He ain’t happy.”

She snorted. “He’s never happy. He’ll get over it.”

“So, um, you said get comfortable?” She couldn’t see another place to sit. 

Crowe rolled her eyes. “Oh, come sit here, you awkward mess,” she huffed and yanked Brienne into her lap. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she repeated dumbly. She could  _ feel _ the heat working its way down her face. 

A grin worked its way up Crowe’s cheeks. “You’re adorable. And I would love to kiss you silly, but I’m  _ tired _ , and it’ll be hours before Nyx gets here. I want a nap. That work for you?”

Brienne nodded. “Fine with me. And you’re comfy.”

That got another snort from Crowe. “Most men tell me I’m bony.”

“Men are trash,” Brienne muttered. 

“That they are,” Crowe agreed.

Brienne watched as her eyes slowly closed, and settled her head on Crowe’s shoulder. Sleep came quickly.

~*~   
Nyx wished at this point he’d oiled the hinges on his flat door. Because there was definitely  _ somebody _ in his apartment, and the opening squeal of the door would let them know he was there. At least he had Libertus at his back, bum leg or not. 

“So, ya gonna go in?” Lib’s rougher voice asked. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighed, and rushed the door, kukri in hand.

Lib bounced off his back as he stopped cold, the sight in front of him not-quite-processing.

“What was  _ that _ for, Hero? Can’t even take on a home-invader?” Lib grumbled, and then squawked when he caught the same thing. 

Crowe and Lalonde, both out cold, Lalonde snuggled very comfortably in Crowe’s arms.

Libertus snickered. “I’m not sure if I wanna take pics first or wake ‘er up and tease her.”

“If you tease her she might murder you,” he replied, slowly slipping his phone out of his pocket. Aim up the shot, aaaand...Got it! He grinned. 

He put his phone away and leaned in close to the sleeping pair. “Hey, Crowe,” he waited a breath. “You’re late for muster!”

Crowe shot up with a curse, eyes wide and panicked, dislodging Lalonde. Lalonde went rolling onto the floor, cursing up a storm of her own, and  _ wow, _ that was definitely anatomically impossible. 

“Oh fuck you, Ulric,” Crowe spat, rubbing at her face. “You’re an asshole.”

“That’s what they tell me,” he grinned. 

Lalonde, still flat on her back on the floor, propped herself up on her elbows. “Thanks a lot for  _ that _ wake-up call. You know we’ve had maybe four hours of solid sleep altogether? I’m  _ not _ counting the downtime after the flight back from Tenebrae.”

“Aw, sounds like a full night’s sleep. But, Tenebrae?” His eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah, weren’t you just on a mission yesterday morning?” Libertus asked, sitting on his tiny coffee table. Nyx let it go. “There’s no way you could’ve gotten to Tenebrae and back in time.”

“Lalonde’s team  _ really _ cuts down on travel time,” Crowe shrugged. “And since daemons don’t fly, we travelled at night too.”

“Wait, Lalonde’s team?” Libertus stared hard at the small blonde.

“Okay, I’m confused,” Nyx raised a hand.

“Same,” Libertus added.

“What’s with the secrecy? We knew you were on a mission to go get the Oracle, but…”

“Lalonde was added to it last minute.”

“Uh-huh,” both he and Libertus nodded along.

“And then we were ambushed at the drop-off point outside Insomnia. By Luche, Furia, and Arra.”

“ _ What the FUCK? _ ” Both he and Libertus spat. 

“Fuck is the right word,” Crowe agreed. “Tried a sort of drive-by shooting. Luche  _ did _ love his guns too much.”

“Came up from the direction we were going in another van, rolled down the window, and started shooting,” Lalonde said, finally sitting up, legs crossed. 

“ _ Fuck, _ ” Libertus repeated, and lumbered over to wrap Crowe in a hug. Crowe grumbled wordlessly about it but returned it just as hard. “I’m glad you’re okay, Crowe.”

“Thank Lalonde. She saw the gun muzzle,” Crowe pointed with her chin.

“ _ Thank you, _ ” Libertus said, gratitude in every line of him.

Nyx nodded. “Yeah. Crowe’s practically Lib’s little sister.”

“Oi,” Crowe grumbled. 

Lalonde nodded, oddly quiet. 

Crowe huffed and yanked on Lalonde’s arm. “Get back up here, you.”

Lalonde raised an eyebrow. “Sure there’s room? Someone seems intent on using you as a plush toy.”

Crowe growled. “Get  _ off _ me, you big lug,” she demanded, punching him in the arm. Libertus took his time moving away, only for Crowe to drag Lalonde back onto her lap.

Nyx grinned. “Adopted a little sister of your own, Crowe?”

“Oh my  _ fuck _ , I am twenty-fucking-eight years old!” Lalonde exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “I know I don’t look it, but I am!”

He stared. “No way.”

“I know there’s no way to prove it beyond the sheer amounts of  _ done _ I am with everyone thinking I’m still too fucking young to drink!” she griped. “Fuck’s sake, what’s it gonna take?”

Libertus glanced at him. “Can we keep her, too?”

Lalonde let out a small roar and made to mock-strangle Libertus, shaking him by the shoulders, moreso when he started laughing. 

Nyx waited until the noise died down. “So keep going. You were ambushed,” he motioned for more with his chin. “What’d they tell you?”

Crowe grimaced, and Lalonde rubbed at her face. 

“Not much. Luche was the only one I was able to get to  _ to _ talk,” Crowe sighed. “Arra I fried and Furia had a bullet in his gut thanks to Lalonde.”

“Can we not talk about that?” she muttered, going pale.

Oh, damn, Lalonde was  _ green? _ What the hell kind of world did she come from that let her get a team like the one she had but hadn’t seen death before? Fuck, she was going to be having nightmares for  _ days _ until she processed it all. 

He reached out and squeezed her shoulder, and she seemed to relax a little bit. 

“Luche just talked about wanting to get revenge against Lucis for giving up Galahd, and then he shut up. That was it.” Crowe shrugged a shoulder. 

Lalonde pushed on. “We had to figure out who could have set this up. Three people, besides you two, knew about this mission. The king, Drautos, and the Marshall. Cor, because he’s the one that told me. But that guy is so damn loyal to the crown the world would have to turn upside down before he betrayed it. And it makes no sense for the king to have done it, soo…”

His mouth went dry. “Drautos. A traitor.”

“Only thing that makes  _ sense _ ,” Lalonde shrugged. “Called Cor, told him what happened, and he told us to keep going. The Oracle had to be retrieved from Tenebrae before the treaty.”

“Ends up that Cor had the scene cleaned up as soon as we left, and Drautos has been suspicious, but since we haven’t been ‘seen’ on Citadel grounds, and Lady Lunafreya is hiding in private rooms, he’s got no proof one way or the other of which plan succeeded.” Crowe grinned.

“Okay,  _ question. _ Actually, multiple questions,” Libertus interjected. “One, how’d you get into the Citadel without being seen, two, how’d you get to Tenebrae and back so quickly, and three, who the  _ hell _ is Lalonde, because that is  _ no _ Glaive or Guard uniform I’ve seen,” he said, gesturing at the light purple tunic. “I mean, she’s saved Crowe so she’s in my good books no matter who she is, but I’m missing something big.”

Lalonde went pink in the ears. “Sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. These two talk about you so much I forgot you didn’t know.” She stood up and held a hand out to shake, and went even pinker as Libertus took it in a warrior’s clasp at her elbow. “Champion Brienne Lalonde, of Kalos.”

Libertus froze. “Of  _ where? _ ”

He and Crowe were quick to fill him in on the details. 

“I recorded her first exhibition, Lib, you’ve got to see it,” he pulled out his phone and pulled up the app. “Pelna had a steel  _ pipe _ in the arsenal, I have no idea why he was holding onto it, but  _ fuck _ she’s as comfortable in the air as I am.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me…” Libertus trailed off as the video started to play. “Ramuh strike me down,” he breathed. He locked eyes on Lalonde. “And you come from a place where this is  _ normal? _ ”

She waggled a hand. “That’s eight years of training and a lot of creativity. It’s less  _ normal _ and more highly trained abilities put to creative use.”

Libertus blinked. “So, normal.”

Lalonde facepalmed. “Gods, why me.”

“Because they like to beat the shit out of us,” Libertus replied. “Doesn’t answer my other two questions.”

“I have flyers that can cover large chunks of distance, we flew at night, and Kanaya teleported us in from the Insomnia border.”

“Teleport.” Libertus sounded about at his limit. “Okay then.  _ Teleport, _ ” he shook his head slowly. 

Crowe  _ giggled _ , suddenly, and he had a sinking feeling.

She poked Libertus in the arm. “One of her flyers? Is named--”

“OH  _ NO _ you don’t!” he shouted, leaping up and plastering a hand to her mouth. Crowe just met his eyes and  _ licked his palm oh Astrals so gross. _ He fought the instinct to yank his hand away. “What are you,  _ five? _ ”

Crowe whapped Lalonde on the arm and motioned. 

Lalonde grinned. “Nyx. One of my flyers is named Nyx.”

“Fuck,” he groaned and pulled away from Crowe, her face smug.

Libertus  _ sniggered _ . 

“And it’s a dragon that likes its pets. And purrs.” Crowe added fuel to the fire.

His best friend, the man he grew up with, looked at him with all the false innocence Nyx knew he had from years of being dragged in front of their mothers after many, many escapades, grinned, and started patting him on the head.

“Oh,  _ fuck you, _ Lib,” he grumbled. 

“You’re not stopping me.”

“Fuck you so much.”

He took a deep breath through his nose, and tried to find where they’d gone wildly off track. 

“Okay, so, you weren’t seen arriving in the Citadel, but it doesn’t explain why you’re  _ here, _ and the text,” he said, acting like the head-pets weren’t happening. If he ignored it, it wasn’t happening. Nope. Not at all. Even if it felt nice.

“We teleported here after dropping Lady Lunafreya off,” Crowe said, grinning regardless. 

“The king told us to stay invisible until the signing, in which all bets are off, really,” Lalonde shrugged. “Makes it harder for Drautos to know exactly what’s going on.”

Crowe’s grin abruptly dropped from her face, enough that Libertus stopped his petting. “What was with the king telling you that Drautos is your target at the signing, Lalonde?”

Lalonde pursed her lips. “I’ve been completely sworn to silence by the king on that, Crowe,” she sighed. “And can you call me Brienne, all of you? I thought we went over this.”

Crowe grumbled but nodded. “Fine. Can’t tell me. But be  _ careful? _ Anyone who trains with Drautos tends to get their asses kicked, Bri.”

‘Brienne’ went fully pink across the face. Oh  _ ho? _ “Yeah, I can do that.”

Libertus grinned that same false-innocence grin again. “Got somethin’ you wanna tell me, lil’ sis?”

Crowe narrowed her eyes at him. “Keep your godsdamned assumptions to yourself, Lib.”

“Aaaaah-huh.”

~*~ 

“So you think there’s a Skarmory in the Galahdian sector,” Crowe said, the next morning. 

One more full day until the signing. And everything went to hell. Fuck.

“Yeah. Heard it calling last night. They kinda sound like broken horns? Very distinctive,” Brienne nodded, and grinned to herself as news media broadcasted that the Oracle had disappeared without a trace from her rooms in Tenebrae. 

Success was very, very sweet.

“Just thought that was someone trying and failing to play an instrument,” Crowe replied. 

They waded through the tightly-crowded streets of the Galahdian sector, Crowe blending in perfectly with her coloring and Brienne standing out just the tiniest bit with her bright blonde hair and pale skin. She was one blonde in a sea of brunettes and it was kinda showing. 

It didn’t take her long to tug Crowe to a stall that sold scarves, and pull out a green one. 

Crowe hummed, paid, and wrapped it around Brienne’s hair in a way that revealed her neck but hid most of the blonde. “There. You blend in a  _ bit _ more.”

She went pink, and Crowe booped her nose.

“Um, thanks.”

“Uh-huh. So where do you think it’s hiding?” Crowe asked as they swam back into the crowd. 

“A junk pile maybe? Urban centers are so far away from a natural habitat it’s going to hide any way it can. Something with a lot of loose metal.”

“Mmm. I think I know a place like that. C’mon. You got what you need?”

Pokeballs hidden under a long vest. “Yeah. Let’s go get this poor thing.”

“Poor thing? It’s got  _ blades _ for wings.”

“Probably scared out of its mind, though. Urban center, and can’t fly away because of the Wall? It’s just hiding out in one big taunting cage.”

“...Point.” Crowe sighed. “If you’re up for some tiny alleyways, I know a shortcut.”

“Lead on, Crowe.”

~*~

The Skarmory had perched itself on the tallest, rustiest pile of junk in the whole yard, and at the very bottom stood a kid that  _ couldn’t _ have been any older than ten, arms outstretched and an expression on their face that said they’d fight all of Insomnia if they had to. Crowe sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look, kid, we’re not here to hurt you.”

Said kid just got angier. “You’re here for Skysword! I’m not gonna let you take’em!”

An expression of infinite tenderness came across Brienne’s face and she  _ sat down, _ made herself small. 

“Brienne?” It was just a kid…

“How long have you had Skysword?” she asked the kid, ignoring Crowe for the moment.

Kid looked at her crossways. “...A couple weeks.”

“Okay. That’s good.” She seemed to think, eyeing the Skarmory perched on their little mountain. “Is Skysword hurt anywhere? Do they let you pet them at all?”

The crossways look turned into suspicion and hesitant trust. “They’re fine. They let me pet them all the time.”

“Have they taken you flying yet?” Brienne asked.

Kid shuffled a rock on the ground with their toes, not making eye contact. “Just around the junkyard.”

“I see,” Brienne hummed, and slowly reached for her purse. “I’m just gonna get something that’s gonna help Skysword. I promise.”

“I’m watchin’ you,” kid mumbled. “An’ your friend.”

Brienne sighed as she shuffled around in her bag. “Sit down, Crowe.”

She did so, slowly. “Why you bein’ so nice to this kid?” They were here for the Skarmory. 

“And piss off the Skarmory, who has clearly attached itself to the kid? You  _ want _ feather blades to the face?” she snarked. 

Two large, bright blue fruits came out of her purse, and she rolled them carefully towards the kid. “That’s for Skysword. It’ll heal’em. Promise, no tricks.”

Kid knelt slowly, picked up the fruit, and sniffed. Whatever they got from the smell seemed to prove it, as they scrambled up the junk pile faster than they should be able to for their size. 

‘Skysword’ perked up as they made it to the top, and nuzzled the kid as they got close. The Skarmory caught sight of the blue berries and devoured them in an instant, avoiding the kid’s hands as easily as anything. Crowe’s jaw slowly dropped open. 

Wings fanned out, the tips as sharp as any sword, and the kid scrambled right onto the bird, cheering as they took off, doing loops around the ‘yard, that broken-horn call going off over and over again. 

Brienne’s laugh brought Crowe’s attention back to the shorter blonde, and she startled when she spotted tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“...I don’t wanna take the Skarmory away from the kid. It’ll hurt them both  _ so badly. _ ”

Crowe’s stomach sank. This was gonna make a great report. “How badly?”

“The Skarmory will never trust humans again, and have a hard time making bonds with its own kind. The kid...heartbroken,” she sighed.

“So what do you want to do?”

Brienne pulled out a pokeball. “Hey kid, Skysword, come down here for a minute!”

Skysword landed in a rattle of loose blades, pulling its wings back tight to its back. Kid stayed right where they were on the Skarmory’s back. 

“What’s your name, kid?” Brienne asked, eyes still wet.

“...Jason.” They shifted in place, nervous.

“You got people lookin’ after you, Jason?” she said as carefully as she could, voice gentle.

“Don’t need no adults lookin’ after me.”

“Alright. You got friends?”

Jason nodded.

“They your size?”

“...Dick’s a bit bigger. But he’s just tall.”

“Alright. Jason,” she sighed, and wiped at her face. “Skysword’s decided to keep you, so I’m not gonna change that. But this’ll make it easier for Skysword to stay with you.” She let the enlarged pokeball roll towards them both. The Skarmory seemed to recognize it, and looked at Brienne with renewed interest. “Don’t let it get damaged while Skysword’s in it, okay?”

“Huh?--What?” Jason was not-completely-kindly shuffled off the Skarmory’s back, and then there was a flash of bright red light as it disappeared into the ‘ball.

Jason’s jaw dropped, and then a second later the Skarmory was back, churring softly and preening Jason’s hair.

Brienne slowly stood, and Crowe followed.

“When things get  _ scary, _ Jason, you get your friends and you get on Skysword, and you fly west, okay? Go to Hammerhead. It’ll be safe.” Brienne said, words soft but eyes locked on Jason’s until he nodded. 

Crowe’s head snapped to the side to stare at Brienne, and it took her a moment to follow after her as she left the junkyard. 

_ “What the hell?” _ she spat, jogging to catch up. “‘When things get scary?’ What the fuck does that mean?”

Brienne looked at her then, met her eyes, and Crowe had  _ no idea _ where that much sorrow had come from, so much that it stopped her in her tracks again.

“It’s all gonna go to hell, Crowe. And I’ve looked, but I can’t do anything to stop it. Slow it down, throw a monkey wrench, yeah, save more lives, but it’s all fucked to hell.”

Crowe’s head tilted slowly to the side. Pieces were fitting together that she  _ didn’t want _ to fit together. “...That’s why your target is Drautos. Why he hasn’t been  _ arrested. _ Why we’re being hidden away.”

Brienne kept walking. “Nyx’s flat is this way, right?” Her voice broke halfway through.

_ Oh Astrals. _

~*~

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hail! Glory to Insomnia, the City that Cannot Sleep._
> 
>  
> 
> Say goodbye, Star-Child. The city falls, now, for its prophesied end. Their Shadows walk with You.

Brienne woke an hour before dawn, the day of the treaty. The delegation from Niflheim had entered the city the night before, and the news media channels were all but screaming about how Oracle Lunafreya had been standing next to King Regis to greet them. There were already screenshotted memes of Lord Ravus’ face--her brother apparently--barely keeping control from total flabbergasted awe all over the internet.

She slowly put on her armor, one piece at a time, Kanaya quietly mediating at her side. Light tunic, padded tunic over that, and then the shirt of chain mail that looked weighty but barely held her down. Over that went the tabard and belt to keep it all cinched tight. Gauntlets, greaves, shin guards went on in quiet pairs, each tug of a securing belt one more strap of anxiety around her heart. Next were her pauldrons, forcing her to stand tall. The feather-like skirt guard attached to her belt, settling comfortably against her waist, hips and thighs. Her helm and cheek-guards went last, framing her cheekbones and preventing them from getting broken. Her world had a visible frame to it now, just on the edges of her peripheral vision.

Her battle supply bag went at her hip, strapped down securely there and at her thigh. She pulled open the zipper, checked the number of hi-potions, revives, max-revives, full-restores, elixirs, ethers, dried berries. Good enough, for all that she hadn’t planned to go into a battle zone upon arrival.

Ten minutes to dawn, she handed Kanaya the rest of her travel pack. “Take this to where we warped into Insomnia from? It should be safe there after all. More or less.”

Kanaya simply nodded and vanished with no fanfare, reappearing a minute later.

She sighed and secured her helm, made sure it sat right. A moment, and she knocked on the wall next to Nyx’s bed, where Crowe sat in full uniform, head hanging.

“Time to go.”

She pulled her head up, so slowly. “Are you _sure_ there’s nothing that you can do to _stop_ this?”

“If I’d had more than a month, every single well-trained battler in Kalos, from the Elite Four all the way down to gym acolytes, and time to plan as many sneak attacks as I could? Then yeah, maybe I could’ve done something. But I don’t.” She shrugged. “It’s more than one avalanche going at once.”

Crowe’s face settled into a blank slate. “Then let’s go.”

With Kanaya’s hands on both their shoulders, it was only a blink, and then there was King Regis, seated behind his desk, looking surprisingly awake and calm for everything about to about to go to hell in a handbasket.

Well, everything was already in the handbasket. It was just a matter of going to hell, now.

“Right on time,” Regis nodded.

“Your Majesty,” Crowe bowed, Brienne inclining her head when she got a side-glare.

“Glaive Altius, Champion Lalonde. Good, you both look ready for today. Glaive, your assignment is to Lady Lunafreya. You, along with Glaive Ulric, will protect her here in the Citadel and without. Make sure she gets where she needs to go for as long as you can.”

“Very well, your Majesty.” Another brief bow, a glance to Brienne that spoke more words than she was willing to realize--something she’d never forget--and Crowe spun on her heel and out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Then it was just her and the King.

“Regis,” she said softly.

“Have I thanked you for what you’re going to do? The estimated civilian survival rate, with the Kingsglaive still within the city, and Cor’s best guesses on what your team can do; it’s skyrocketed.”

“Good news,” she agreed.

“I am _forever_ in your debt. What you do now and for my son.” He swallowed. “It would be crude of me to ask if there’s anything you want.”

A pathetic attempt of a smile tried to appear on her face. “A little bit.”

Regis stood, pulled open a drawer on his side of the desk, removed four pieces of folded and separately wax-sealed paper, and a small box. “These are the letters you asked we write to our children. Do you have a place for them where they will remain undamaged?”

A nod, and she accepted them with both hands, slipping them into a side pocket inside her battle pouch.

“This…” Regis sighed again, an old grief briefly stealing over his face. Brienne herself wanted to cry. “This is for you. It is a lesser seal of the kingdom of Lucis. You go forth to deal with more than just warring empires after this. Should you need to command the Glaive or what’s left of the Crownsguard, this will signify that authority. Cor will back you up if challenged.”

Shock hit her. Denial. “I cannot take that.”

“I want you to. So your job is a little easier.” He met her eyes with the unrelenting steel that his time as king had forged his spine into. “You have _no reason_ to do what you are, to go as far as you are. You have shown multiple times there was _nothing_ keeping you here. Not locks, not walls, not people, not loyalty. Nothing but the duty to your own principles. I would have _gladly_ allied with Kalos if people like you are its shining examples.”

Tears streamed down her face and she didn’t know when she’d started crying. “Your compliment is most flattering,” she forced out, hoarse.

Cane in one hand, ring-box in the other, Regis slipped around the desk and pressed the seal into her hands. “It is yours to do with as you will.”

She broke, then, head bowed over their clasped hands.

Regis let her cry, quiet in the power of his patience. Accepting of his fate, afraid only for his people and his son. Serenity of this kind hurt, in the simplicity of its existence.

Enough time passed for her to straighten her shoulders and tilt her head back, banishing the tears from where they came. Regis’ hands pulled away from hers, leaving the seal. Without looking, she slipped it next to the letters.

“Come, dear, dry your face,” he hummed, handing her a handkerchief. “There’s still much to do today. Got to get you positioned for the signing.”

“Yeah,” she nodded.

He waited for her to collect herself.

“There are so many things I wish…” she mused quietly.

Regis offered her his arm. “As do I, my dear. It’s one of the burdens of ruling. I wish your regrets are few, in your time.”

~*~

She was _behind a curtain_ . Of all things, a _curtain._ Rich black velvet with black and gold lace, some of it at the _perfect_ height for her to use the lace to spy upon the signing from behind where Emperor Iedolas and King Regis sat. One day, if recordings survived, some detail-oriented soul might see, on playback, her eyes looking back at the camera. Her legend would be ‘ _who was behind the curtain?_ ’

Just call her Oz.

An explosion rocked the Citadel. Iedolas pulled a pistol from _somewhere_ in his robes, prompting a cascade of stand-offs within the hall, swords and polearms on one side, pistols on the other.

Her eyes locked on Drautos. He stood on the king’s side, but had yet to draw a weapon. She waited.

Another explosion, and a sound like cracked and shattering glass rang from the sky. From behind her curtain, she couldn’t see through the floor-to-ceiling windows, but everyone else could, and she heard them.

“The Wall…” someone breathed in horror.

More sounds of cracked glass, louder and reminiscent of falling rain as pieces hit the floor, muted horror growing in her as bodies thumped down from the sky and landed in the hall. A breath, and they stirred, standing with the awkwardness of something that only sort-of knew how a human’s joints worked.

Magitek soldiers. The Wall was down. They were in hell.

Bullets began to fly, indiscriminate to Lucis or Niflheim. Regis threw up a barrier to protect as much of his side as he could, just as Drautos drew his sword behind the king’s magic.

Brienne saw her cue. Drew on all the sorrow and rage and horror that she’d kept within her for a _month_ and focused it into the battlerage Gl’bgolyb had once warned her about, so long ago.

She burst from behind the curtain into sheer chaos. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Regis _smirk_ , still around to enjoy the surprise he’d oh-so-carefully planned and kept as secret as possible. She ran forward, used the signing table as a boost and springboard, and leapt into the air at Drautos, flinging open her pokeballs even higher.

She came barrelling in at Drautos, battle yell pulling at the limits of her vocal cords, fists and feet glowing aura blue, and brought down a punch that was four or five times stronger than someone her size should have ever been able to do.

Drautos dodged it, and her fist embedded itself into the marble floor, cracking it like glass. Brienne looked up from her crouch and bared her teeth.

 _“Hear me! Behold, Titus Drautos, traitor to the throne of Lucis!”_ She bellowed, voice carrying above much of the fighting.

Drautos scoffed. He signalled _something,_ and armor came swarming up his body, black smoke preceding brushed titanium and wicked looking spikes, and what was left of the black smoke dripped back down in ooze.

“ _Glauca,_ ” Clarus snarled.

And then her team came down from the materialization, all arrowed for Glauca. Patrick landed first, his dagger-like hands screeching against the metal, leaving gouges inches long in Glauca’s arms. Glauca made to slap Patrick away and missed, the foot tall ‘mon easily dodging the hit and stabbing his hands into Glauca’s feet, pinning him in place.

Glauca roared in pain, voice distorted from behind his armor.

Marcone and Dirk came down at the same time, Marcone holding dragonfire in his paws and Dirk’s tonfa glowing the violently pink-purple of Psycho Cut.

The brass roar of dragonfire and psychic energy against whatever it was Glauca’s armor was made of echoed through the room. Glauca somehow pulled his feet from Patrick’s pin, and the fight was on, three-against-one.

“Champion Lalonde, this way!” she heard Clarus call, a side-door open and the King’s Shield already halfway through it.

Iedolas had disappeared in the chaos, most of the diplomatic parties were dead, and the battle between Glauca and her team was starting to turn into a tornado of force.

A tall flash of white body-rammed against Clarus, forcing him into the next room, and Brienne dashed to follow.

The scene before her made the bottom of her stomach drop away. Clarus, standing defense in front of Regis, who had lightning crackling from his hand. They faced--

“Ravus Nox Flueret,” she said, prowling around the figures, fingers drawing toward her belt. A brief twitch on his face leant towards surprise at her very precise pronunciation of his family name.

“Champion Lalonde. There have only been a few whispers about you.”

“And all of them from Glauca, no doubt,” she hummed, playing arrogantly aloof. “Do you still wonder how your sister got from Tenebrae to Insomnia in a day? With no one else the wiser?”

Ravus’ eyes went wide, as Clarus and Regis watched the exchange. “That was _you,_ ” he breathed, as he gripped his sword tighter.

“That was me. And Glaive Altius, I’d have never gotten there without her,” she added with a shrug. “Now, since I have answered something you wanted to know, tell me why you come after the King.”

Ravus’ face turned ugly. “He let _Tenebrae fall!_ ” He snarled. “He let Tenebrae fall and when he could have done something, all he did was _hide behind his Wall._ He is not worthy of the throne, _or_ the Ring of the Lucii. So I will take it.”

Regis’ face fell into something sorrowful, the words hurting more than a sword ever could.

Not one to let a silence grow, Ravus charged. Clarus met him in the middle, swords locked.

“Champion Lalonde, go! I have this!” Clarus grit out, and disengaged the sword lock.

She bit her lip but did so, following Regis through yet another door into a hallway.

“Come,” Regis motioned, and hurried as fast as his leg would let him.

“Why is Ravus so angry?” Brienne asked, as they slipped into an elevator and started heading down.

“Twelve years ago, Noctis was attacked by a daemon outside of the Wall. His injuries were so great that he needed healing from the Oracle of the time, Queen Sylva, of Tenebrae. For a time, there was peace,” he sighed, and slumped against the wall. “Niflheim invaded. I grabbed my son, and Luna, and ran. Queen Sylva died in the attack. Luna… Luna stayed behind to give my son and I time to get away. She knew Niflheim would not harm her as the new Oracle. Ravus is… upset I was unable to do anything to stop Niflheim.”

The elevator opened into a round foyer, in time for the Citadel to rumble dangerously.

“With the Wall down, Niflheim will be using airships to bomb the city from the sky. When the sun sets, they will release whatever daemons they brought with them.” Regis closed his eyes in pain.

“Is there anything else you can do? What about this, this _Ring_ Ravus spoke of,” Brienne tried, fists glowing blue on-and-off like a lightning bug.

“...If I were younger, had more of my strength, I could use it to summon the Old Wall. Alas…” he looked down at his hands helplessly.

“You need strength?” she asked, pointedly. “What _kind_ of strength?”

Regis stared blankly at her. “The New Wall drained my life energy. I do not have enough for the Old.”

Brienne’s hands stopped flickering and held steady their blue light. “I can give you that. It’ll suck, for me, but I can do that.”

“You can _give--_ ” Regis’ words crashed together in his throat. “Oh, you are full of so many surprises, Brienne. But you will need it for the days to come.”

“As long as I don’t drain myself to death, I’ll recharge. Damn it, _come here,_ ” she growled, and grabbed Regis’ hand, the one with the Ring. Thinking about it now, she could sense _something_ coming from it, but there wasn’t enough time to figure it out. Her second hand went over Regis’ heart. Their eyes met. She gathered her aura, her energy, as if to heal, but _pushed_ , let it flow out of both her hands and into Regis.

The _Ring_ , more than Regis himself, sucked it up, as if a never-ending vortex. She heard voices, just on the edge of her perception, whispers and exclamations, irritation and annoyance, _how dare she even try_ before they faded away in the rush of blue energy.

Her hand smarted, as if burned.

She yanked away, shocked, and stared down at the ring as it let out blue-purple flames. Regis seemed unharmed, but Brienne...her hand had a shiny new burn in the shape of the ring’s gemstone.

“Well fuck you too,” she grumbled, as she swayed from the energy drop.

Regis _laughed,_ a fully-bellied thing that startled her out of her irritation. He stood tall, weight even on both legs, shoulders straight. “The kings of old don’t exactly like it when anyone else touches their things, my dear. But you were close. So close. I think, I could almost…”

Ravus came out of the elevator, sword still drawn as it dripped red.

“Clarus,” Regis whispered.

“Will you hide behind another girl, _Your Majesty,_ ” Ravus mocked, stepping closer.

“Oh, fuck you too, you _prick!_ ” Brienne shot back. “I’m twenty-eight.”

Ravus glimpsed at her like he didn’t know what to make of her.

Regis shook his head slowly. “This is my fight, Brienne. You need to go.”

“Regis, I can still--” He cut her off.

“The people, Brienne. They need you, airships or not.” He pushed her then, hard, and between the sudden surprise and the energy drain she stumbled away. Clear white hexagonal blocks barred her from Regis and Ravus.

“Regis, Regis _no,_ ” she cried, banging her fist against the wall.

“Finally owning up to your crimes. Good,” Ravus all but purred.

“Oh, Ravus, I’m so sorry,” Regis sighed. “I never should have left you in Tenebrae.”

Brienne watched from behind Regis, eyes wide.

“I heard you. I’m so sorry, but I heard you. I _tried._ I saw you there. I tried to get to you but by the time I’d forced Glauca away...I could only grab Noctis and run. I tried to take Luna with me, but she pulled away. I’m so sorry, for both of you.”

“Does he even know what he’s going to _do_ to my sister?” Ravus yelled, vocal cords straining high.

Regis slowly shook his head.

Ravus grit his teeth, tears in his eyes. “Unworthy, the both of you.”

Brienne banged against the barrier with her one good hand, eyes wet and streaming. “Dammit, Regis, _let me in!_ ”

Ravus never got the chance to fight Regis.

The Ring of the Lucii began to glow, incandescent, burning-lithium bright. He turned his head to glance over his shoulder, gave Brienne a brief smile, mouthed ‘thank you,’ and closed his eyes.  

The light from the ring exploded into a supernova, eye-searing bright, causing both Brienne and Ravus to shield their eyes. When it faded, Regis had collapsed, his magical barrier gone.

The world rumbled, this time from the ground up, knocking Brienne’s balance off and causing her to stagger.

Ravus was still for a long moment, a myriad of expressions flicking across his face before it settled into an ugly snarl. “And with your last breath you deny me my vengeance,” he whispered. “What does summoning the Old Wall even gain you? The city is already gone! _Useless to the end!_ ”

The last statement was punctuated with a kick to the dead man’s stomach.

“How _dare you,_ ” Brienne snapped, voice growling low, charging towards Ravus. Her snarl surprised Ravus enough she was able to body-check him away from Regis’s corpse. “How dare you! He summoned the Old Wall to save his people! The _last_ damned thing he could do as king, and it’s to save what’s left of his people, don’t you _dare_ \--”

“He is no king, and you’re a fool if you ever thought he was!” Ravus shouted, his face still twisted in fury.

He tried to shove past her, use his greater weight and height to his advantage, but Brienne stood strong, up until Ravus focused on her long enough to backhand her and send her rolling away from Regis’ side.

“And now,” Ravus said, his hands on Regis’s almost gentle. “We shall see the truth of your precious _prophecy_.”

He slipped the ring from a dead hand.

Brienne picked her head up off the marble floor, unable to do anything but watch.

He smiled, a dark grin as he held it up, and slid it on to his own finger.

“Hear me, Lucian kings of old, for I am Ravus Nox Flueret, and none is more worthy of your power than I!”

Silence.

Ravus’ arm _lit on fire_.

Brienne stared in shock as his left arm combusted faster than flash paper and fell away to ash. Ravus fell a second after, clutching the charred stump.

In the broken quiet of Ravus’ whimpers of pain did Brienne come back to herself, taking one step with each breath, and picked up the Ring of the Lucii by Ravus’ shaking form. She stared at it, such a small thing, plain and barely adorned. Such a small thing to cause such pain.

She wondered where the nearest Mount Doom sat.

As it was, it was probably better if she got it to Noctis and his retinue. She grimaced as she considered a place to put it, and then shrugged and dropped it down into her bra. Good luck getting it there.

“You are _lucky,_ ” she snarled, both in anger and in sorrow, to Ravus’ face. “Lucky that Regis wanted you to _live,_ and that I like your sister. Next time I see you, do not make me kill you.” She stepped away, spine cracking.

More breaths got her to Regis’ prone form, his face relaxed in death. She knelt at his side, clasped what she could of his hands together on his chest, and bowed her head for a moment.

“Godspeed, Regis.”

A thought, and his half-crown went into the pocket with the letters and seal.

She retraced the steps she and Regis had taken, riding the elevator back up to the only floor it went to. Down the hallway, ignore the drops of blood on the floor. Push aside the door left open, freeze at the sight.

Clarus lay in the middle of the floor, pool of blood growing around him. She ran for him, skidding to a halt at his side on her knees, hands in the air as if she could do _anything_ about this. Her leggings quickly soaked up blood.

Clarus twitched.

“Oh gods, _Clarus,_ ” she moaned, and took his hand. Blood quickly transferred from his hand to hers, and she tried not to bawl.

His eyes fluttered open. “Lalonde…”

She gave him her best smile.

“...The king?”

Her face told him all he needed to know.

“Go. Save the people. Watch the Prince. Watch...my son…” Clarus faded away, eyes thankfully closed.

More tears already slipped down her wet face. She stood, slowly, and put both of Clarus’ hands around the hilt of his sword.  “Gods watch over your path to your king in the afterlife. May the winds be ever at your back.”

One more room. One more. This time, for a traitor and infiltrator.

The door to the hall was destroyed. She walked in, feeling dirt and grit and glass under her boots.

She spotted her team first, Dirk nursing one arm with Marcone fussing over him, light purple waves coming from his paws to the injured arm. Patrick stood by Glauca’s head.

His head. Because his body was ten feet away, leaking blood.

Brienne wiped the tears and snot off her face, winced when it got Clarus’ blood on it instead. She swallowed.

“Good job, you three.”

Patrick bowed to her at the waist, and then kicked Glauca’s head further across the room. The Pawniard line did not take well to disloyalty. She let him.

She instead kneeled at Dirk’s side, watching carefully. “What do you need?”

_“A couple of potions, mom. Marc’s got me pretty much covered with Heal Pulse.”_ Dirk shrugged.

“Okay. I can do that.” She carefully took two potions out of her bag and sprayed them where Marcone indicated. “You guys did good while I was gone. Really good.”

Dirk looked up at her. _“They’re both dead.”_

“Yeah.”

 **_“ <And you watched it happen, to both.>”_ ** Marcone added. When she gave him a confused look, he added, **_“ <Death leaves a mark of its own in aura. It’s sitting on you.>”_ **

“I tried. Regis, Regis he...he wouldn’t let me,” she whispered.

Dirk stroked her face, slowly, carefully. He left the blood stained there undisturbed. For fighting types, blood had a special meaning, especially blood of the dead.

She shuddered, focused on her breathing, and only stood when Patrick nudged her and pointed out the broken window.

In the distance, statues of the old kings walked, striking at airships and swiping them out of the sky. Past the border of the city, she could see an Imperial Dreadnaught, waiting. Just. Waiting there.

The sun sank close to the horizon.

Night would fall soon. Daemons would rise. The people needed out of the city, those at least who still lived.

...No more death, _please._

She returned Marcone, Dirk and Patrick with a look, and summoned Athena. The Noctowl chirped in worry at the sight of blood, but she shook her head. “Not mine. We have work to do.”

Brienne mounted Athena, gave one last look to the hall, and signaled for takeoff.

The sky stained itself a smoggy red, a pool of blood from the bleeding and dying crown city.

~*~

Full night. Her body ached in ways she didn’t think it could ache, the stream of refugees leaving the city never-ending. Cinnamon worked as main vanguard along with what survived of the Glaive and Guard, few people expressing shock over the creatures keeping them from dying a horrible death. Brienne rode Athena as scout, Nyx her wingman, looking for more pockets of survivors.

A bass roar, felt more in her bones than her ears, rode through the city. Brienne turned towards the epicenter of the sound, and nearly fell off Athena in shock.

“Oh great gods, help me.”

 _Huge_ didn’t describe it. Enormous didn’t encompass it. Pacific Rim-sized kaiju got pretty close.

 _This_ was what Niflheim was using to conquer the world? No _wonder_ Regis had been backed into a corner. Gods. Oh, _Gods._

It matched the height of the taller skyscrapers in the city and dwarfed the others, using Cephalopod-like tentacles to drag itself forward, destroying the city in its wake. She saw three mouths, each set of jaws sitting on a shoulder and one in the front. A giant, red-hued orb sat in the center of its chest. Possibly a weak spot, maybe not. She had no idea.

Nyx looked terrified from her spot in the air next to her, and Athena felt it.

The Lucii statues were on their way to deal with it, but most of them were damaged, missing arms, had partial weapons.

Well, it was a daemon, right? And all daemons were weak to sunlight. All she had to do was weaken it enough for the cavalry.

She could do that. _Hopefully_.

“Pull back,” she called out, and both Athena and Nyx wheeled around in the air to return towards the rough hideout that was the current headquarters for organizing the evacuation.

“Cor!” she called out, hopping off Athena and trying not to stumble.

He glanced at her and kept barking orders at the same time.

“Giant fuck-off daemon just got dropped off in the middle of the city. And by giant I mean bigger than the skyscrapers there,” she informed him, and watched as the blood drained from his face.

“We need to move faster,” he muttered, and started shouting. “ALL AVAILABLE GLAIVES GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND GET PEOPLE MOVING. CITY-KILLER INCOMING.”

There was a scramble of movement and Brienne barely caught up to Cor again before he disappeared into the chaos.

“ _What?!_ ”

“I can slow it down. I think. But I need a staging area in a line of sight. Flat, high up. Ideas?”

He stared at her, and the only reason she didn’t fidget was because she was too damn tired.

“I know a place. I’ll take you.”

“Get on Athena,” she gestured with her chin.

Cor sat uncomfortably behind her on Athena, and his arms went rigid in his hold around her waist as they gained air.

“Afraid of heights?” she yelled back to him.

“Yes,” he grunted.

“Athena’s the best. You’ll be fine,” she replied. “Which way?”

It took Cor a moment to orient from being in the air. “East,” he said.

Athena banked and flapped hard to get lift over a city at night. The various fires burning helped, but it was nothing like what daylight did for updraft.

It didn’t take long for Brienne to see what Cor was getting at. The building looked to be some sort of hoity-toity company that was going to have absolutely no reason to exist by tomorrow’s morning light, and it only took them three minutes by air to get to the top.

Brienne could see the full amount of damage Niflheim had done the second the Wall had gone down, and more since with the Lucii destroying everything they could with no concern for the city around them. And that wasn’t adding what the new kaiju sized daemon was doing. _Shit,_ it was big.

“Well?” Cor asked, gruff.

Brienne slid off Athena, wobbled, and it was only Cor’s hand around her upper arm that steadied her. “Thanks.”

He grunted.

Right. Kaiju-daemon first.

“Kanaya, Saturn, Dresden, you are needed!” she cried, and they released simultaneously.

 **_“Oh holy fuck,”_ ** Kanaya cussed, a first. **_“Please tell me we’re running away.”_ **

Brienne shook her head. “All of you, Sunny Day, right now.”

As up towards fifteen orbs of bright light the size of boulders began to appear in the sky, Brienne shuffled through her battle pouch and pulled out her mega-ring, clasping it to her left wrist. The resulting light from so much Sunny Day caught the Kaiju’s attention and it turned slowly, ponderously, as if such an event was just a curiosity.

“Better hurry it up, Lalonde,” Cor said.

“Saturn, mega-evolve,” she commanded, quietly. After so much time with him, the merge of feelings and sensations came without pause and little fanfare, Saturn’s plant tripling in size and more growth appearing wherever it could.

Another quick shuffle into her pouch, and she pulled out a power herb, which she let Saturn immediately snack on. The start of solar beam began to bud in his main flower, the size of mega-beach volleyball, and both Kanaya and Dresden used their psi to shrink it to the size of a basketball. As Kanaya held the solar energy in place, Dresden began to feed it Sunny Day orb after Sunny Day orb. Each orb made the solar energy expand just a little bit, primed to explode on the spot.

Kanaya began to wince and shake from the sheer amount of power it took to hold back the literal power of the sun. Both she and Cor could smell slightly burning grass.

**_“Mom, it’s got to be soon, real soon.”_ **

“I know, love. I know,” she muttered, eyes locked on the kaiju. It knocked down another skyscraper to pull itself towards them. Also, usefully, away from the evacuation.

Brienne yanked Cor and Dresden away from Saturn.

“Now, Kanaya, Saturn! SOLAR CANNON!” She bellowed, the sound vanishing under the release of the attack. Kanaya teleported herself behind Brienne to escape.

The recoil of the attack pushed Saturn halfway across the roof before he was able to root down into the concrete and stop himself, the concrete itself going black and charred from the sheer power of the attack being launched.

It seemed a small eternity as the head of the attack travelled across the city, lighting it up like mid-day and causing anything daemonic smaller than the kaiju to scream in agony and vaporize from the UV radiation. She could see the shadows from the resulting attack on the far shores of the mainland.

The solar cannon hit. And blew one whole set of tentacles and jaws off the monster, continuing forward to slam into another skyscraper and _then_ hit the Dreadnaught that released the damn thing. The kaiju screamed with two mouths and flailed, the dreadnaught losing an engine and booking it for _out_ of Insomnia.

The Lucii finally caught up to the kaiju and began whaling away on it.

Saturn, attack finished, immediately devolved and passed out. Feeling the backlash, Brienne dropped to her knees and tried not to pass out as well, feeling the world spin.

A broad, warm hand rearranged her gently and pushed her head between her knees. “Breathe, slowly.”

It took a moment, and then a bit longer for her stomach to not rebel and throw up what bile was still in there.

“Told you,” she muttered softly.

Cor stared at her.

“That ya hadn’t seen everything. Nothin’ to explode,” she slurred slightly.  

Cor huffed a small laugh. “So you did. Can you make it back to headquarters?”

She bobbed her head in a nod and returned Saturn, mentally promising to heal him as soon as she was in the clear. Kanaya remained until it was just her, Athena, Cor, and Brienne.

**_“Mom, you’re nearly wiped.”_ **

“I know, love.”

Cor watched.

**_“You go much longer you’re gonna pass out, or kill yourself. Don’t.”_ **

Brienne didn’t say anything, only struggled to get back onto Athena. Cor sighed and helped her up.

“You’re not going to be any help, dead. You’ve helped,” he said, and Kanaya shot him a grateful look as she returned herself.

“Not done yet,” she muttered.

“You’ve done enough,” Cor emphasized. “The Glaive and Guard can handle it from here. Let us do our jobs. You’ve done yours.”

“Mnnn,” she mumbled. Cor’s arms tightened around her again. Right. His fear of heights.

She blinked and Athena landed, back at the evacuation center. Another blink and she was on Cinnamon, with someone behind her. A third, and she was outside the city for some reason, dawn coming over the horizon.

“Wait...what? When did…” she tried to twist around and look.

“Easy. Rest. Evac’s done,” Cor said from behind her, pulling her back to sit properly. Cinnamon turned her head to whicker at her in admonishment.

“When…?” she peered at Cor through eyes she could barely keep open.

“The Niff attack ended just past dawn. They’re done bombardment. Now they’re just trying to secure the city. With what they did, not much to secure, but…” he shrugged.

Brienne slumped against him. “Where’re we goin’?”

“Hammerhead. Old friend there. Refugees are going to Lestallum.”

“‘Kay,” she sighed, and let her eyes close again against her will.

~*~

_“Passed out late in the evacuation…”_

_…_

_“See if ya can’t get some o’ tha’ armor off’er, Cindy…”_

_…_

_“She’ll be fine. Overexertion.”_

_…_

_“Do we need to get liquids into her?”_

_…_

_“Hey, it’s Prompto. Cor told us what you did for Insomnia. We’re grateful. We are. Can’t wait for you to wake up to tell you in person. And Crowe? Crowe really wants you to wake up. Noct had to order her to take a break, eat something. So wake up soon, okay? I don’t think sitting on her will work. She can warp, and also kill me without thinking about it…”_

_…_

_“Hey Bri. I understand why you couldn’t tell anyone. Niflheim would’ve dropped the treaty plan and killed everyone. I get it. But damn. Damn…. Jason got here safe, with their family. Well, they call’em family. It’s just a couple a’other kids. Already orphans. Old man Cid’s over the moon. Jason likes cars. Already actin’ like he’s got another grandkid… Please wake up. It’s been two days. We can’t wait for you for long.”_

_…_

_“We are quite worried for you, Brienne...I am worried. Lady Lunafreya says you will wake up soon, but you’ve shown no sign of such. Your vitals are steady, if slow. Just. Please come back. I cannot bare to lose anything else. I cannot bare to lose any of my friends.”_

_…_

_“Cor says you did my Dad a big favor. I don’t know what, but he says you can tell me. So you have to wake up. So you can tell me.”_

_…_

_“Aw, Brienne, you’ve been sleepin’ too long. Your team needs you. They’re all out here, even the creepy squid-thing. Saturn’s okay. Just needed some sunlight and water. Kanaya’s gonna come in a minute, with Marc. Because you’ve been sleepin’. Time to wake up.”_

_…_

**_“Mom…”_ **

**_“ <Brienne. I know it hurts. But you have to face it. You’ve done it before. Show me that courage again.>”_ **

**_“Mom, please. Wake up. I need you. Dirk needs you. Everyone’s waiting for you. I can feel you there, hiding. It’s okay to come out. I promise. It’s okay. Wake up.”_ **

Something soft under her head. Sorta-creaky mattress under her body. Mildly itchy blanket over her. Cool, slim, familiar hand on her cheek. A pounding headache from hell. She slowly tilted her face into the touch, and sighed in relief when a familiar paw pressed against her forehead and helped ease away the pain.

Her eyelids fought opening, glued shut by sleep dust. She cracked them apart, finally, just enough to make out the two forms next to her.

“...Naya?” she croaked out, and winced. Her throat felt like the Kalos Badlands.

Solid paws helped her sit up enough to drink, slim green hands tilting the cup up to her lips. Thirst demanded she guzzle it down, but Kanaya had more sense than her thirst and took it away after a few sips.

**_“Hi, Mom. Welcome back to the land of the conscious. How do you feel?”_ **

“Wrecked,” she answered truthfully. Her hand shook as she brought it up to rub at her face.

 **_“Marc, go let everyone know she’s conscious. Tell Ignis to get started on that broth he’s been muttering about for a day and a half.”_ ** Kanaya commanded, and Marcone obeyed, slipping silently out of the small bedroom.

“Where?” she asked, and got the chance for a few more sips.

 **_“Hammerhead, apparently,”_ ** Kanaya shrugged. **_“Regroup point after the fall with the Prince’s retinue, Luna and her guard, and Cor, to keep it all organized. Place is so full it’s a bit of a madhouse.”_ **

“I can imagine. How long was I out?”

**_“Today’s the third day after the fall.”_ **

“What.” It didn’t process. It can’t have been three days. Sure, she’d exhausted herself, but _three days?_

Kanaya bopped her gently on the forehead. **_“First world empath problems,”_ ** she joked. **_“You were in a WARZONE where war crimes were committed willy-nilly, and watched two people you quite liked die. No mental wall in the WORLD was going to defend against all of that. So your subconscious decided you needed a vacation.”_ **

“Oh,” she sighed.

 **_“Yes, oh. Now you get to deal with the fallout. I’d have teleported you out of there the second the Wall went down, but I know how you are about keeping your word.”_ ** Kanaya grumbled silently, sighed, and stroked Brienne’s cheek. **_“It’s going to be hard. A lot of the trauma you’ll be processing won’t be your own. But a good chunk of it will. There will be nightmares, and odd mood swings, and new paranoia. But you’ll make it.”_ **

Brienne bowed her head and fiddled with a loose thread in the blanket. “What time is it now?”

**_“Mid-morning. So most of the group is awake. Most. Apparently, Noct sleeps harder than Hawkie does, so he’s still out.”_ **

She sniggered.

A knock at the door, and it was open long before Brienne could give permission. Crowe froze, staring, and Kanaya gracefully stood from the chair.

**_“She’s all yours. I’ll keep the group from getting worse, and send Dirk in later so you can have a bath.”_ **

Kanaya shut the door behind her, prompting Crowe to sit down.

“...Hi, Crowe.”

“Don’t you _ever_ do that to me again, you hear me?” Crowe spat out, furious, hands fisted on her own jeans. “Do _not_. Or I will kill you myself, and then bring you back to clean up the mess.”

Brienne smiled softly, and took Crowe’s hand. Something about how weak the hold was must have hit her, because she took it with both her own.

“Okay, I promise. I won’t.”

Crowe met her eyes. “That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Lil’ bit.”

“A least you’re honest about it,” she sighed. “Did you know it would be that hard on you?”

“Truthfully?” Brienne shrugged. “Not completely. I knew it’d be _hard,_ but I didn’t think...Some of it blindsided me. There are a lot of downsides to what I can do. I’m awesome, but I’m still mortal.”

Crowe snorted. “Don’t joke about that. It’ll turn you into Nyx.”

“You mean my Noivern? I’d _love_ to grow wings.”

Crowe _laughed_. Soft, a little sad, but still a laugh. “Yeah, you’re gonna be okay.” She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to Brienne’s. “Don’t do that again. I can’t watch your back all the time. Don’t make me come back to news that you’re gone.”

“I’ll try,” she said, as honestly as she felt.

The door creaked open again, Dirk this time.  _“Hey, mom, bath time. Hi, Crowe.”_

“Dirk. I’ll leave you to it.” Crowe slipped from the room just as smoothly as Kanaya had, letting Dirk the space.

_“Do you think you can stand? It’s okay if you can’t, it’s been three days, that’s why I’m doing this and not Kanaya.”_

“Dunno. Let’s find out.” Limb control was fairly easy, if a little shaky on the fine motor control, and she got the blanket off her and her legs over the edge of the bed without any problems. She leaned forward, got her feet on the floor, and pushed off.

Great. Standing was a go! Walking?

Was _not_ a go, as she took one step and crumbled under her own weight.

_“Aaaand this is why I came up, because I said ‘stand,’ not walk.”_ Dirk sighed as he caught her and swung her up into a bridal hold.

“Shaddup,” she mumbled into Dirk’s shoulder, the Gallade already walking to the bathroom, which was apparently down the hall.

_“Hm? What was that? I didn’t hear you. Oh, hi Prom.”_

“Dirk, my man! Got the new outfit all ready for you in there…” he trailed off as she picked her head up and looked at him. “You’re really awake. _Brienne,_ ” Prompto nearly rushed the two of them, only stopping when Dirk glared at him. He settled for squeezing her bare foot. “You’re up! That’s good! I’m glad, we were worried, I thought Iggy was going to fret his way through an entire cookbook, oh he’s gonna have that broth ready for you by the time you’re done, do you want it in bed or downstairs?”

Brienne took a second to process the Prompto-babble. “...Downstairs, I think. I’ve worried people.”

“I’ll let him know!” Prompto beamed, and dashed back downstairs.

There was a thump.

“I’m okay!” Prompto called to the world at large.

Dirk snorted and got them both into the bathroom, shutting the door with a leg.  _“C’mon, let’s get you clean, so we can get you fed.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I've always loved Regis. He's such a tragic character, and he got ridiculously shafted for the storyline. I'm looking forward to Episode Ardyn if only to see younger!Regis. Lucis Caelum family full of hotties, I s2g...
> 
> In other news, I'm doing well in NaNoWriMo. Got 18K+ words. Truckin' right along. 
> 
> Next chapter of ICML who knows when. I'm running out of buffer. DX


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so the push against the world begins. Brienne slots herself into the group of four boys, and the chemical reactions begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I finished NaNoWriMo three days early so you lot get a chapter in celebration. I'll go back to posting EotB pretty soon once I polish things a bit.   
> Enjoy the chapter!

Ignis watched as Brienne sat curled up on the sofa, pillow and then bowl of broth in her lap. He watched in case her hand shook too much for the spoon, or if she looked like she was going to have another fainting spell, or any other possible concern she could have at the moment. Of course, he made it  _ look _ like he wasn’t watching, sitting in a chair across from her with his nose in his notebook. He  _ was _ making notes, it was true, but his heart just wasn’t in it. 

He didn’t quite think he’d fooled her, but she let it slide. 

About halfway through the bowl, she stilled, and set the spoon down. 

“Ignis, I’m sorry, but I can’t finish it.”

He worried a little more. “That’s quite alright. It keeps perfectly well. You can have more when you’re hungry again.” He was quick to sweep the bowl away from her and deposit it in the kitchen, returning to his seat. 

“Where is everyone?”

Cid Sophiar’s house was not exactly  _ large _ , so keeping everyone out of it most of the time had been priority. The small guest room had been offered after a look between Cor and Cid that he still didn’t understand besides ‘long history.’ 

“With news of your awakening, I am sure that Gladio is getting Noctis out of bed from the caravan. Crowe is probably retrieving Nyx from the field. He took to handling small hunts while waiting. Cor is going over who and what survived the--” he worked his throat around the words. “The fall, so he can accurately coordinate future events. Lady Lunafreya, I do not know. She has kept to herself, except to check on you. She aided your healing, the first morning you were here.”

His eyes landed solidly on Brienne, who seemed to wince in pain with just her eyes.

“Oh, Ignis. Come here.”

“Pardon?” What had he said? He was  _ sure _ he had kept anything out of his voice except for mild curiosity. 

Regardless, Brienne was patting the couch next to her in invite, and it would be rude to refuse. And he did not want to. He settled carefully next to her, and she went from leaning against the back of the couch and the arm to leaning on him. 

He did not know  _ quite _ what to do with this, beyond lift his arm and wrap it around her shoulders. She snuggled into him. What.

She seemed to relax, anyway. “I’m sorry for worrying you.  _ I _ didn’t even know I’d crash that hard.”

He frowned. “So you knew you’d crash.”

“Well, yes. That’s generally what happens when one gets up before the crack of dawn, and then is up all day and night, most of it in combat,” she said flatly.

“Ah. May I ask what caused you to crash so hard?” So he could make sure it never,  _ ever _ happened again.

She smiled to herself and shook her head slowly.  _ What _ was he doing to make her do that?

“I’d like to tell the group at once. Is that possible? And soon? There are...things that need to be taken care of immediately. Confessions to make. Mine, really.”

He held her just a little bit tighter. “Are you very sure? You just woke up.”

She sighed. “I won’t be able to sleep unless I do it as soon as I can, Ignis. So yes, I’m sure,” she hummed. “I appreciate the gesture. And the hug. Though you could do it properly.”

“As you wish,” he said, and he  _ may _ have hugged her tighter than necessary, but she did not seem to have a problem with it, sinking into it as she did.

It went on for as long as she wanted. He was sure of it. He only began to let go when she did. 

“I will gather everyone around. Stay put.”

“Can’t exactly walk anywhere,” she said with a shrug.

He left the room, and on the edge of his hearing, caught “Dirk, could you go get my battle pouch, and the lace-weight yarn? Size one needles. Thanks.”

…Knitting? For a talk?

~*~

Brienne was finally awake! And wanted to talk. Which was awesome! But she was sitting there on the couch, legs tucked up under her and all her attention on the knitting in front of her that he wondered if what she had to say wasn’t good. It was  _ tiny _ knitting too, yarn that looked more like thick thread than any yarn Prompto had ever seen. What was she doing, anyway? The work was so tiny that he couldn’t see her hands moving. 

It didn’t take long for Cid’s small family room to become crowded. Prompto shifted in place, Noct on one side of him and Ignis on the other, Gladio on the other side of Ignis. The three Glaive that had been assigned to Luna stood behind the sofa, Crowe directly behind Brienne. Luna was  _ also _ on the couch, and the fact that he was in the same room as the Oracle still made him giddy. 

He’d thanked her for her letter after gathering the courage and now every time she looked at him she smiled and it made him melt inside every time it happened. 

Cor leaned against the wall, arms folded, frowning at everything but that seemed to be  _ his face. _ Prompto tried not to let it get to him. Cid got the spare chair, with Cindy standing at his side.

Lastly, Dirk sat on the arm of the couch next to Brienne, pressing his hip into his team leader’s arm. Constant contact. So Dirk was still worried. 

Everything would be okay after this, he was sure of it. 

Brienne put her knitting down into her lap. 

“So, um, I guess I better get started?” She shifted in place and sighed. “First things first.”

Prompto felt the heat  _ rush _ into his face as she reached into her shirt and pulled out...a ring?

“The Ring of the Lucii?” Cor said, coming off the wall. “Lalonde, why didn’t you say anything?”

She gave him a flat look. “I passed out.”

Cor  _ sighed _ and Prompto fought giggles. 

“Anyway, I don’t know  _ why _ this is important, but seeing as it lit someone on fire because they didn’t have royal blood, I figured I couldn’t leave it there?” Brienne shrugged. She still hadn’t really looked anyone in the eye, so much different from the confident woman he remembered at the Citadel. 

Then again, these last couple days would change anybody. 

“What do you  _ mean, _ lit on fire?” Gladio asked.

Brienne’s whole face twisted up in a wince. “Luna, I’m sorry, but your brother is now missing an arm.”

Luna sighed and shook her head. “I am glad he is alive.”

Brienne, very carefully, put the Ring of the Lucii down on the table. “That is yours, Prince Noctis.”

Noct stared hard at it, face frozen, before picking it up and slipping it in a pocket.

Brienne sighed and sank a little into the cushions. “Okay, questions for me?”

“Why were you out so long? You were barely injured.” Cor asked. “If that happens again mid-battle, it’s a risk.”

“It shouldn’t,” Brienne replied, voice flat. “I’m an empath. And normally I have walls up to block most anything. ‘Cause it’s rude. But a city’s worth of panic and fear and anger, and death? Yeah I couldn’t keep blocking that out.” She shuddered, and Dirk rubbed the back of her shoulders. “My subconscious decided it was time for me to take a vacation. But now I’m awake, and my mental walls are pretty much gone. So I’m a mess. And can read all of you. But I can’t pinpoint who’s feeling what. Like a radio built to receive and broadcast all the channels in the area it can get at once. So, uh, it’s a wonder I’m not bawling my head off right now…” She rubbed at her face. 

Prompto fought the sudden urge to go hug Brienne, only catching himself when he wondered if that would make things worse. 

“Um. I’ve got…” Brienne swallowed, trying to break the silence. “Shit. Just,” she fumbled for a pouch, unzipped it, and reached inside. Papers? And oh holy shit that was King Regis’s  _ crown. _

Tears started streaming down Brienne’s face. “Fuck. Um. Gladio, you and your sister got a letter, and so did Noctis and Ignis,” she said, voice cracking. Her hands clenched around the pouch. “Prince Noctis, your father died summoning the Old Wall. He died defending his people. I…” her voice squeaked. “Damn it, I can’t.  _ Dirk! _ ”

On command, Dirk swooped in and scooped her up, along with her pouch and knitting and whisked her away back to the guest room. 

The elephant in the room became the few, small items on the table. 

Noct snagged the crown and his letter and ran from the room, ran from the  _ house, _ the front door slamming behind him. 

Gladio picked up the two letters addressed to him and his sister as if they were made of glass, face stony. He stood slowly, head bowed, and left as well, footsteps heavy. 

Ignis picked his up, folded it in half, and slipped it in his notebook, hiding that away in a vest pocket. 

“If you would excuse me,” Luna said softly. “I think I will go sit with Brienne. A calming presence may help her.” A dip of light blonde hair, and Luna’s white-clad form disappeared up the stairs after Brienne and Dirk. 

“I need a moment to myself. Excuse me,” Ignis muttered softly, and left.

Prompto felt lost. He understood that his friends had lost near about  _ everything. _ He just...didn’t know how to help. He still  _ had _ his world. His friends. Even his mom and dad. They were from part of the city that had been successfully evacuated. He’d find them when they eventually got to Lestallum. 

The three Glaive had taken over the couch, and suddenly he felt out of place. 

“C’mon kid, let’s go talk outside.”

He startled under Cor’s hand. “Uh, okay. But. That’s where everyone else is?”

Cor pulled him along, silent, until he got his feet under him and followed. Out of Cid’s house, into the garage, into a corner sheltered away from the sun. Cor let his eyes run along the piles of scrap and tools, grabbed  _ something, _ and tossed it to Prompto.

“Here, kid, fiddle with this.”

Prompto stared. “...What?”

“Cid won’t care. Heard you have a knack with machines. It’ll keep your hands busy.” Cor shrugged and leaned against a wall. 

He looked down. He couldn’t tell what the mechanism was, but there was plenty to explore. 

“You okay, kid?”

What? “Hm, yeah, I’m fine. I mean, why wouldn’t I be?”

The block in his hands was definitely a puzzle, but not one he’d ever seen before. There was a hinge, but he couldn’t open it right away. Hm. The other side?

“Insomnia’s gone, kid. Pretty good reason to be not okay.”

“Well, yeah, sure. But I didn’t lose anything, not really,” he shrugged. Nope, not that latch. Wait, that  _ spins? _ Why?

“What didn’t you lose?” Cor asked.

“Oh, well, yeah, I lost my house, all my stuff. But those were just things, y’know? You can replace things. My parents were out of town when we left Insomnia, but they could’ve come back before the treaty. And my neighborhood was cleared out pretty fast by the evacuation.” Okay so he got  _ something _ to unlock, but now he was hearing some sort of internal mechanism going. “Hey, this isn’t a bomb in disguise, is it?”

“No. Have you heard from your parents?”

Prompto shrugged. “Nah, but that’s normal. Sometimes I won’t hear from them for a month or more. They’re busy.”

He heard Cor shift, looked up. Nothing had changed on Cor’s face, so he went back to working on the puzzle.  _ Wow _ , whoever made this had one hell of a twisty brain. If he could just spin that gear, oh hey the spinny thing  _ turned _ the gear, okay. The puzzle opened up a bit, revealing more to work with. 

“Insomnia’s fall is worldwide news by now. It’s been three days, and they haven’t gotten in contact with you?”

Prompto’s hands stilled. “Stuff happens. Maybe they’re too busy for the news.” Okay, there was another switch in here, it released a lever  _ somewhere, _ he could hear it activating and deactivating. 

“They knew you were Crownsguard, right, kid?”

“Yeap. Left a note and everything telling me how proud they were. Said we’d have dinner together the next time they were home for more than a few hours.” He hummed. Wait, this thing turns on an axis like a rubix cube?  _ Dude. _

“So. Insomnia falls, you don’t know where your parents are, for  _ sure, _ and they haven’t gotten in contact with you at all. Not even a text. Are you  _ sure _ you’re alright, kid?”

His grip on the puzzle tightened. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

He looked up and froze, pinned by Cor’s stare. “I have to be.”

“Why?”

He yanked hard at the puzzle, didn’t notice what happened to it. “Because I’m just the lucky kid the Prince befriended! Because I didn’t just lose my whole  _ life _ in the blink of an eye!”

Cor kept looking at him, and something in his face softened. “Yeah. But you might’ve lost your parents, and you don’t know. It’s okay to be upset about that. Even now, with your friends upset by other things.”

“But Noct, and Gladio, and Ignis, they’re so much more important than me. And they don’t need to have to worry about me.”

“Kid, here’s a lesson for you. A worry shared is a worry lessened. But it only works both ways. Letting your friends, your  _ brothers, _ support you will help you support them.”

Prompto finally looked down at the puzzle in his hands. It’d clean come apart in two. He stared. “I think I broke it,” he swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. “I can fix it, I just need a screwdriver and--”

Cor was in front of him, one hand on his shoulder and another on one half of the puzzle. “It’s okay. It was always meant to come apart. Cid made it for me a long time ago.”

“But...why? All I did was yank.”

Cor shrugged. “Sometimes things just need a good, hard yank.”

“Oh.” He blinked. 

“C’mere, kid,” Cor sighed, and wrapped Prompto up in a hug that engulfed him, puzzle and all.

Warm. Warmth and security and all of a sudden it all came crashing back down on him and Prompto couldn’t keep the tears away this time. He buried his face in Cor’s shoulder, the only way he could think of to hide, as it all came out.

“It’s alright Prompto. It’s alright to let it out.”

~*~

Luna knocked gently on the guestroom door. She was glad she wasn’t here to heal, for once, but someone still needed her. She got no reply to her knock, so she cracked the door open and peeked. 

She could barely see Brienne between the triangle of teammates she was surrounded by. She recognized all three, Kanaya, Dirk, and Dresden. Dresden had turned himself into the fluffiest pillow, and Kanaya and Dirk sat in front, their foreheads bent forward and touching Brienne’s. 

“May I come in?”

Brienne did not move. Dirk cracked open an eye and motioned with a hand. 

She quickly came in and shut the door as quietly as she could, and made her way to the chair besides the bed. She had plenty of patience. She could wait. 

She would wait, but she would watch, as well. Both Kanaya and Dirk had a subtle glow around them, now that her eyes were adjusting to the lower light of the bedroom. Brienne’s face, what she could see of it, still had tear tracks down her cheeks, and the whole of her shook, subtly. Tiny, strained gasps escaped her lips, fueling the shakes. 

She bit her lip and waited more. 

It was...fifteen, twenty minutes before anything else happened. 

“Hi, Luna,” Brienne whispered. The glow had died down, but beyond that, nothing had changed. 

“Brienne,” she tried to smile. She...sort of got there.

“I don’t know what to do, past this. I barely know  _ how _ to get past this. I was there with Regis when he died. I was there with  _ Clarus _ when he died. How do I grieve them and look their sons in the face, ever again? How am I supposed to watch their backs when all I’ll be to them is the harbinger of all these  _ horrible _ memories?” She sniffled and stared at the lacework in her lap. 

Lacework? Luna peered closer. Indeed, it was the lacework she had started downstairs. Small, still. Luna had a place to start, then.

“Why are you knitting?” she asked, as softly as she could. She had an idea, but…

“It helps. With the grief. Sometimes. Sometimes, I finish whatever project it is and the grief’s still there, unblunted.” She picked the needles up again, in the tiny space created between her and her team. 

“Why lace, this time?”

“Because Clarus and Regis were  _ good men _ , and they did not deserve the deaths they got. They were strong, stronger than I think I could  _ ever _ be, facing the same thing. Because Regis was completely calm, nigh on  _ serene _ the whole time. Because he died  _ smiling, _ smiling at  _ me, _ thanking me for everything I’d done even though I felt like I’d barely done anything at all. It all still went to hell, and I was simply witness,” she gasped and leaned forward. Kanaya and Dirk pushed back, keeping her upright. Dresden, from behind, rubbed slow circles into her back. 

“And because lace, visibly delicate, is much, much stronger than it looks,” she finally answered. “You make it right, and it will hold until the very end, no matter how much you pick at it. It’s a tribute in a way, you know?”

“For Regis?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “And it’s...it’s not something I can keep. Anything knitted in grief must be given away. One way or another. I generally give it to whoever’s affected most. In the case that they don’t accept it, I find someone who understands, who is willing to hold  _ my _ grief. Because that’s what this is, in the end. A physical representation.”

Luna tilted her head to the side. “I have never heard of that tradition before,” she hummed. “I think it’s quite sweet.”

“Thanks,” Brienne said, more breath than voice. “It’s just mine, really,” she shrugged. Looked up, really  _ looked _ at Luna, and then glanced at the bed. “Hey, do you wanna sit on the bed? That chair can’t be comfortable.”

“I am fine where I am, thank--” Brienne cut her off.

“No, I know that type of chair, they’re a literal pain in the ass, guys, d’you--” Brienne’s sentence ended abruptly in a flurry of shuffling around and spring creaks, until there was enough space for Luna to squeeze in. “Lucky you, you get to use Dresden as a pillow. He’s even comfier than Nyx.”

Kanaya sat in Brienne’s lap, head tucked under her chin, Dirk at her side, cradling her. Dresden made beckoning motions with his paws, and Luna carefully climbed onto the bed.

Dresden gave her little chance to be shy, pulling her back with surprising strength until she was flush with lots and lots of fur. Luna opened her mouth to say something but stopped when she realized it was very,  _ very _ comfortable.

Brienne snorted through a clogged up nose. “Such a cuddle whore,” she joked. 

Dresden huffed in response and gave Luna a hug. 

Luna carefully put a hand on Brienne’s leg. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah. Eventually. Once I figure it all out,” she shrugged. “You’re helping. How are you  _ so calm? _ ”

A slow smile, borne more of sadness grew on Luna’s face. “I have known this kind of grief for a very long time. I take comfort that I still have much that matters to me.”

Brienne blinked. “Well, that sucks.”

Luna snorted. “Yes, it can sometimes.”

“Cuddle her harder, Dresden,” Brienne said, voice firm. 

Dresden  _ cheered, _ that’s all it could have been, and then there was a cold and wet snout in her ear and she twitched away, ticklish. “Hey! That is my ear, I’ll have you know!”

Dresden rumbled and the cold snout went from her ear to her neck and she squealed, higher pitched than she could remember doing for ages. 

“Does ‘cuddle harder’ translate to ‘tickle’ where you are from, Brienne?” she gasped between tickle attacks.

“Sometimes,” she grinned back. “It depends on the pokemon and the situation.”

Dresden’s paws went for her ribs and  _ oh no _ \--

“I give, I give, you have my surrender!” Luna gasped, curled up around her middle.

Brienne giggled at her. Her eyes met Brienne’s, and soon the giggles were contagious and overwhelming, the two collapsing on each other into a puddle of snickers.

~*~

Brienne eventually crept down, long after Luna had left her, lured by the smells coming from the kitchen. She peered around the corner of the kitchen doorway, curious.

“Brienne! You are feeling better, I hope?” Ignis asked, in front of the stove. 

“Well enough,” she shrugged. “You?”

“As well as one can be, considering the circumstances.” Brienne watched him show absolutely no physical cues as to what he was feeling. What she got, mentally, was a completely different matter. But she could see he took comfort in working in the kitchen, so she let it be, for now. “Dinner will be ready soon. Due to how many people are in one spot, the group is adjoining outside. I can make a place for you inside if it is too much…?”

“No, Ignis, I’m alright for now. I can deal with a dinner. I got some meditation in, I have enough of a bulwark to handle things.” She eyed the  _ literal _ pile of food in the kitchen. “Want a hand?”

“You were unconscious for three days. I will not have you lift a finger in work tonight. I am fine here, you go outside and find yourself a seat.”

“ _ Ignis, _ ” she huffed.

“Go! Begone! Enjoy the weather, it’s much more pleasant now that the sun has set.” He shooed her away from the kitchen, and she skittled away, grinning. 

Stepping out of the house into the outside was another, smaller shock. Insomnia was a mega-city, smaller districts contained within bigger ones, parks and green areas carefully contained and maintained. Hammerhead was anything but, gravel rolling under her boots and civilization falling away just on the other side of the road. Past the great bright floodlights she could see dry grasslands, and in the darkest shadows she saw moving forms, indistinct but causing the hairs on the back of her neck to rise up regardless. Heat radiated up from the ground, warming her, and with the gentle night breeze she stood comfortable under the starry sky. 

Commotion to her left had her spotting most of the group from that day. Prince Noctis and the rest of his retinue, Luna, Cindy. Cor, the Glaive, and Cid were nowhere to be seen. 

Brienne approached slowly, unwilling to break the pleasant mood she could sense but wanting  _ so much _ to be a part of it. 

Prompto spotted her first. “Brienne! You’re up! Come sit next to me!” He all but fell out of his seat, leaning back and waving. Two picnic tables had been pushed together, and that was what Prompto beckoned her to. His smiling face brightened hers considerably, and moreso when he sat her down squished between himself and Gladio. 

And when she said  _ squished, _ she meant it. There was barely room to move between Prompto’s squirm and Gladio’s bulk. 

And facing Noctis. With no idea how to handle him yet. At all. Oh boy.

“You doin’ okay? It’s alright if you’re not, I was just worried--”

Brienne smiled and  _ sank _ into Prompto’s warm concern, physically leaning against him just the tiniest bit. He started, but brought an arm up around her middle.

“This okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. It’s fine. I kinda thrive on warm and fuzzy feelings. Physical affection is great,” she said. 

Prompto beamed.

“Warm and fuzzy feelings, huh?” Gladio asked, looking down at her. “This work?” And planted a hand on her hair, ruffling it up into a mess.

She was very glad she kept it short, squawking in indignation  _ anyway. _ “If you  _ must, _ ” she fake-grumbled.

Her eyes lifted to Noctis. “What about you? You gonna make it?”

Noctis shrugged. All she could get from him was a vague sense of sorrowful  _ ache _ and exhaustion. Something that was all too familiar to her. 

“You’ll get through this,” she said softly, leaning forward. “Grief...it’s a crucible. You and the pain go in one side, and you come out changed on the other. It sucks, and the process is slow, but it happens. And you’ve got at  _ least _ four other people determined to see you through to the other side.”

“How would  _ you _ know?” he asked, tone sharp. 

“ _ Noct, _ ” Gladio reprimanded.

To anyone else it sounded sharp, angry. But Brienne felt the curiosity behind the pain. Her eyes closed for a moment. “Because I also lost my home, once. It didn’t happen in fire and death, but in an instant, falling asleep one night safe, and waking up the next in a new world, lost.”

Noctis glanced at her and looked away, hiding under his bangs. 

Brienne nodded and leaned back, letting herself be squished between Prompto and Gladio again. 

Ignis came out with a  _ cart _ of food, carefully rolling it over the gravel to the picnic tables. 

“Oh, man, looks awesome!” Prompto cheered.

“I’d say the same, if I could see around this great  _ lump _ !” Brienne muttered.

“Not my fault you’re tiny,” Gladio teased. 

“Yeah, Specs, looks great,” Noctis said. 

Brienne, however, slowly turned her head up to glare at Gladio. “Oh?”

“Yup,” he grinned. “Shortstack.”

She used her close proximity to poke him  _ hard _ in the ribs. Gladio twitched a little bit but otherwise didn’t react. 

“Was that supposed to tickle?”

“...Maybe,” she grumbled. 

“Gladio is not ticklish. Prompto has attempted the feat,” Ignis sighed. “To his dismay.”

“I don’t even  _ try _ anymore, it’s just not fair, I’m ticklish  _ everywhere _ ,” Prompto whined. “He just grabs me and next thing I know I’m curled on the ground begging Uncle…”

Noctis snickered. 

Brienne finally looked down at the plate in front of her. Vegetables, what looked like chicken, and a side of rice. A large wave of dismay washed over her as Noctis groaned, pushing the vegetables to the side. In response, Ignis sighed very pointedly. 

“Highness…”

“They’re  _ vegetables, _ Iggy!”

“Precisely, Noct.”

Brienne quirked an eyebrow.

“Noct doesn’t like greens. I wind up eatin’em. I don’t  _ mind, _ I like everything, but…” Prompto shrugged. 

Brienne’s tongue went straight into her cheek as she thought of something very, very embarrassing for Noctis. “So...he spends like twenty minutes every morning on the toilet?” she asked, mock-whispering.

Noctis went bright red as Luna slapped a hand over her mouth. “I eat  _ some _ vegetables!”

“Then eat some more,” Brienne said, gladly digging into her own plate. With time between waking up and getting her metabolism jump-started again, her appetite returned with a vengeance, devouring the food in front of her. 

The fact that it tasted  _ fantastic _ just made it easier. Ignis was  _ one hell _ of a cook. Why hadn’t she had his cooking beforehand?

“So what are your plans for tomorrow?” She threw out onto the table, once dinner began to wind down. 

“We’re headed to Lestallum. Iris is there,” Gladio said, flat.

“We’ll be picking up a few hunts beforehand,” Ignis added. “Our funds are low and Lestallum is quite a distance away.”

“Can I come with?” she asked blithely, trying not to put too much importance on it. 

“Why?” Noctis asked, eyes sharp. 

“Couple reasons,” she shrugged. “I’ve got nineteen other Skarmory to find and catch. I’m not exactly familiar with the landscape, even if I did have a map.”

“Nineteen?” Ignis asked.

“Had twenty. Found one in Insomnia proper, a couple days before the signing, hanging out in a junkyard in the Galahdian sector. Went with Crowe after hearing it caw during the night. It couldn’t get past the Wall.”

“Is  _ that _ what that giant metal bird is? I keep seein’ it with a bunch of kids that Paw Paw is sweet on,” Cindy said, head in her hand, elbow on the table. 

A little bit of tension in her shoulders fell away. “Jason made it out, then.”

“And the other reason?” Noctis wouldn’t be distracted. 

_ Breathe, Brienne, breathe… _ “King Regis asked me to look after you all, while I was here. He didn’t expect me to stay for long, it was just a request, but I find myself unable to say no.”

She  _ did, _ however, find herself unable to make eye contact with anyone. 

“Why are you even  _ asking _ , then?” Again, the question  _ sounded _ angry, but was really just a lot of hurt and a little bit of curiosity and confusion. 

“Because a lot of your life has been chosen  _ for _ you, and other things hidden completely. The best thing I can give you now is as much knowledge as possible, so you can choose your own path. Knowledge is power is free will, and I won’t keep that from you.”

“Do what you want,” he spat, and left the table. 

Brienne sighed softly, sinking in her seat. “Well, at least he didn’t say no outright.”

Gladio huffed. “You’d’ve just followed on Cinnamon, if he  _ had _ said no.”

“...Athena’s better for long distances per day.”

“Are you able to drive?” Ignis asked.

Brienne twisted her lips. “It’s been eight years since I’ve been behind the wheel. Between public transport and  _ Pokemon _ transport, I haven’t needed a car.”

“...Only in emergencies, then.”

“I can always get Cinnamon to  _ tow _ the car,” Brienne remarked cheekily.

Prompto snorted.

~*~

Mornings. Mornings were a certain type of tribulation that took a mental phantom of  _ other _ mornings where waking up was not a gentle thing to get her ass out of bed. The smell of coffee  _ also _ got her out of bed, and Brienne followed her nose. The conduit between nose and brain was almost always the first thing to start functioning properly, and it hadn’t led her wrong yet.

She stumbled into the kitchen in her pjs, motioned  _ something _ that looked like a wave and a grunt hello to Cid at his table, and peered at Ignis.

Ignis, who was  _ disgustingly _ awake, immaculately dressed, hair gelled, and observing her with more amusement than should be allowed. 

“ _ Coffee _ ,” she managed to mumble in english. 

Ignis graciously slid out of the way, revealing the full carafe of coffee on the counter. Wise man, to get out of her way. People who didn’t know her only ever made the attempt to keep her from her morning coffee once.  _ Once. _

Grab mug. Pour in coffee. Consider current status. Pour in  _ more _ coffee, ignore fixings. Wait until steam fades. Shotgun coffee, ignore the burn and glare hole into wall opposite. Sigh, go to sink, fill mug with water, shotgun water. Let liquid settle. 

Brienne felt the caffeine start to hit her system, or perhaps it was just the placebo effect. Either way, she felt  _ slightly _ more human after waking up. 

“I see mornings do not find you agreeable,” Ignis said, eyes bright. “Was that enough of a  _ shock _ to your system?”

“Oh my god you crazy morning person, you’re already punning at me what did I  _ do _ to you to deserve that?” She moaned, and ran a hand through her hair. “I’mma go for a run ‘round Hammerhead.”

“Do not be surprised if Gladio and Prompto join you. You share morning routines, though yours starts considerably earlier.” Ignis commented. 

“Remnants of a very determined girlfriend,” she replied, and stumbled back into her room for her running clothes. 

~*~

With a fifth passenger, space in the Regalia went from ‘comfortable’ to ‘a little tight.’ With her stature, Brienne found herself stuck on the elevated middle back seat. There was no way Gladio was going to give up the back seat with leg room, and Noct hadn’t even given them a choice before slouching into the back seat on the left and falling back into sleep. 

Gladio knew he was faking. His face was anything but relaxed. He just didn’t want to talk to anybody. 

Brienne seemed perfectly fine with what summed up to the most uncomfortable seat in the car. The knitting that had first made an appearance last night was back, nimble fingers working on it seemingly without any input from her brain. 

Prompto turned around in the front passenger seat and crossed his arms over the headrest. “So where’d you learn to knit?”

Brienne looked up and her fingers kept moving. “Grandmother. I broke my ankle when I was fifteen and she pounced. She’d been wanting to do it for a couple years but I hadn’t had any interest.”

“So she got you when you couldn’t run away,” Gladio grinned. “Bet you loved that.”

“Liked it a bit more when she showed me the violent things you could do with a pair of needles and a crochet hook. Imagine a four-foot-eleven white-haired granny explaining how to jab in the guts and yank out intestines. And yes crochet hooks are sharp enough to do it,” Brienne grinned. 

Prompto paled. “That was  _ not _ an image I needed.”

“No one ever teach you to be careful around grannies, Prom?” he teased. 

“All the grannies  _ I’ve _ ever been around have done nothing but pinch my cheeks and ramble about when they were younger. Or how they had a nice granddaughter for me,” he huffed. 

Brienne snorted and just kept knitting. 

“So you’re coming with us,” Gladio drawled into the silence. “You plan on carrying your weight?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “Sure. Not exactly sure how to go about a ‘hunt,’ but you want me to fight with you, I will. Or someone from my team? I don’t want to put you guys outta work.”

“Naw, don’t worry about it. It’ll settle itself out.” He hummed and finally put a marker in his book. “Gotta know, though. Me an’ Ignis and Prompto, it’s our job to get Noctis to where he’s going. And I ain’t sayin’ you’ll get in the way of that,” he breathed, slow and steady. “But that’s  _ not _ your job, not really. What do  _ you _ plan on doin’?”

Noctis hadn’t moved, but he spotted a certain full-body tenseness that meant he was paying attention. The whole car had gone silent, except for the wind blowing past them as Ignis drove. 

Brienne finally set down her knitting and heaved a great sigh. “You sure do get straight to the point, Gladio.”

“Kinda my job,” he half-joked. 

He could  _ see _ the thoughts running across her face. “You three, you’ve sworn yourselves life and  _ soul _ to Noctis. I can see it in the way you revolve and orbit him. I can’t give the same kind of devotion. I can’t, I have a duty to my own people, my own country, for as long as I have the position. There are probably times I will have to break away from you to do what  _ I _ came for. But  _ fuck _ ,” and she broke off to roll her eyes to sky and blink hard as she smiled. “I’ll give everything I can and probably a little bit that I shouldn’t to help you guys. ‘Cause you lot are in the deep end and when it comes to people I care about I’ll face  _ gods _ for them.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Done that already, then?”

“Yes,” she said bluntly, no delay. Not a brag, then. Simple fact. He was starting to see the steel in her spine.

“Alright then,” he nodded, and cracked open his book again. 

“Who’d you face?” Prompto asked. 

He glanced back up to see her ears go pink. “The first god was Xerneas. God of Life, based in Kalos.”

“You haven’t said much about what pantheons are worshipped where you come from, Brienne,” Ignis chimed in from the driver’s seat, the first words he’d said since pulling out of the parking lot in Hammerhead. 

Noctis had relaxed again. 

“Don’t know much about yours,” she replied. “Trade? Though after a while it’ll probably just be me talking. There are multiple pantheon groups.”

“Only having six doesn’t seem like such a problem anymore,” Prompto said, sinking slowly into his seat. 

“Just six? Huh.” Brienne picked her knitting back up.

~*~

They parked just before a bend in the road in what looked like the middle of nowhere. 

“What’s up?” Brienne asked.

“Blockade bustin’,” Gladio drawled, focused excitement in his eyes. He held the door open long enough for her to slide out of the seat after him.

“Niflheim has had the temerity to erect blockades throughout Lucis,” Ignis informed her. “If we wish to proceed, they will have to be...dismantled.”

“Cor said he found a back door into this one, so we’re gonna go knocking,” Gladio added. “Wanna join the party?”

“Sounds like fun,” she nodded. 

The five of them wound their way parallel to a short cliff face, into a channel that cut away at the rock, barely big enough for them to fit inside. Monica met them inside the bottleneck.

“Prince Noctis,” she bowed her head. He silently returned the gesture. 

“Champion Lalonde. It’s good to see you on your feet,” she added. 

“Thanks. And what do I have to do to get you to call me Brienne?”

Monica just smiled at her. “Cor is further in. Prince Noctis, you will go with him to take out the Niffs from the inside. The rest of your retinue will act as a distraction. Lalonde, if you would join them?”

“Loud and distracting, my middle name,” she grinned. 

The group split, with a final ‘Give’em hell, Noct,’ from Gladio, and the four of them backtracked. 

“So how d’ya’ll wanna do this? I assume you don’t want me to have  _ all _ the fun,” she teased. 

“Haven’t really seen  _ you _ fight,” Prompto chirped. 

“Quite. You are a formidable foe when you cooperate with your team, and you clearly have the athleticism,” Ignis added, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Perhaps you could complete this mission as you are?”

She nibbled her lip. “Sure.”

“Got any weapons?” Gladio asked, as the blockade came into sight. 

“Nah. I fight hand-to-hand,” she shrugged and then rolled her shoulders to loosen them up. Scouts at the top of the blockade were already moving, the commotion causing them to swarm out doors on either side, boots clomping on the hard asphalt. 

“Stick with Prompto then,” Gladio decided, greatsword materializing in a shower of blue crystal. 

“Hiya battle-buddy,” Prompto bounced to her side, pistol already in his hands. For all the cheer in his voice, his arms were remarkably steady, face focused and eyes locked on his first target. 

“‘Sup?” she replied in the same tone, fists already glowing blue. “You handle the distance targets, I’ll get the ones walking at us like really stupid zombies?”

“Yup!” he agreed, and his pistol barked as he fired the first shots. 

The battle turned into a bit of a blur after that. Every time she turned her head, she could see Gladio and Ignis taking out swaths of magitek soldiers like a well-oiled machine. That wasn’t to say she and Prompto weren’t doing the same. The blockade had a  _ ridiculous  _ amount of snipers, and Prompto took them out with startling efficiency.

The magitek soldiers that required Brienne to get up close and personal either had long-handled axes or short swords. She ran up to her first axe-man, rolled under its long reach as it tried to clumsily swipe at her, popped back up and punched it in the chest right on the glowing red spot.

Now, her fighting-type Pokemon could punch a hole all the way through a large boulder and not break a sweat. Brienne couldn’t do that. She  _ could _ , however, punch much harder than her size indicated. 

The magitek soldier she punched crumpled right in the middle and exploded into black smoke and red sparks. She grinned, battle-giddy, and made her way to the next soldier, one with a short sword. 

It didn’t get to keep the sword. Or its head, as she leapt on top of it, wrapped her legs around its neck, and  _ twisted _ with her whole body. Brienne landed on her back and rolled away, as did the magitek head. 

She circled back to Prompto and kicked away a couple magitek soldiers that were advancing on him as he struggled to reload. 

“How’s it rollin’, Prompto?” she called out, fists and feet glowing bright blue. 

“It’s rolling!” He replied. And shot at her.

She ducked and spun, only to see a magitek axe-man behind her fall over, axe still in the air. 

“Thanks, man.”

“No prob,” he shrugged. 

Time blurred on her again before everything went silent, every single magitek soldier destroyed on the ground. Brienne stood up fully, glancing around for more enemies, only really relaxing when Gladio and Prompto started to boast about kill counts. 

“Well, that was bracing,” she hummed, shaking out her hands briefly. 

“Very,” Ignis agreed. “And we seem to have exhausted their supply of magitek soldiers. Let’s see about opening those doors, shall we?”

“Packin’ one hell of a punch there, Shortstack,” Gladio said, one booted foot prodding at a magitek suit that was folded in half. 

“Thanks. Don’t call me Shortstack,” Brienne grumbled. 

“Short stuff?”

“ _ No, _ ” she glared. 

“Oh c’mon, work with me here, I gotta call you  _ something. _ ”

“Nothing that means short. I’m not  _ short _ .”

Gladio raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?” he asked, flattened hand going from the top of her head to about the middle of his chest. 

Her eyes promised vengeance, so much so that when she looked back the doors were open and Cor and Noctis were watching the exchange as well. 

She abandoned vengeance in an attempt to relax and wave at them. “Hi Cor!”

Cor rolled his eyes and sighed. 

“Marshall, good to see you again,” Ignis greeted with proper decorum. 

“Alright on your end?” Noctis asked, the tiniest bit of concern lacing his voice. Which, for him, was a lot. 

“Right as rain,” Gladio nodded. “The Niffs couldn’t take their eyes off us.”

Cor nodded. “You kept their notice off us. Good job.”

A low, aerial rumble rolled over them like thunder, and the six of them looked up to see an Imperial dropship come to a smooth stop nearly right over their heads. The ramp dropped open, and Brienne could just make out the shape of something big. 

“Stay right where you are!”

She glared at the floating monstrocity. “How did we not see that thing coming?”

“Cor the Immortal! So, you survived the Citadel,” the voice said, sounding surprisingly young. “But you won’t survive what I have in store for you. It’s about time your legend came to an end.”

A series of clanks echoed out of the dropship. 

Brienne wished there was a camera to stare into. “...Has he not noticed the rest of us? Whoever the hell this is?”

“Loqi Tunmelt,” Cor said, as a mecha fell out of the dropship. 

“Oooohkay,” she drawled, and her fists began to glow blue again as a magitek horde three times as big as the one they’d just taken care of fell out after the mecha. “I’m bringing out some of my team for this!”

“They’re more than welcome,” Ignis nodded, daggers in hand.

“For  _ combat? _ ” Noctis said, surprised. 

Gladio snorted. “Princess, be ready to be surprised.”

“Marcone, let’s go!”

She fell into the same pattern she had before with Prompto, keeping a radius around the gunner to give him breathing room to shoot. 

Why the  _ fuck _ were there even more snipers than before?

Cor was a force of nature, his katana taking out rows of magitek soldiers at a time with what  _ looked _ like a blade of air, but was  _ probably _ just his sword moving really damn fast. 

“Incoming!” she heard Gladio shout, and then Noctis’s  _ “Prom!” _ had her spinning and running for the gunner before she even realized what she was running towards him  _ for _ . 

It happened to be a missile. From the goddamn mecha, which had been ignored as they tried to do crowd control first. 

Brienne couldn’t stop in time to keep from completely running into him, knocking him into a stagger. Events blurred in her eyes and then everything went crystal clear. She braced, knees bending low and hands held up, as if to support a heavy weight.  

The missile neared and fire  _ erupted. _

Bright neon blue flashed from her hands and spread fingers, falling over the two of them in a dome, a solid wall between them and burning force. Fire  _ churned _ on the other side, infernal claws raking at the barrier, roaring fit to pop their eardrums. She grit her teeth and held her ground,  _ refusing _ to let this  _ mere _ missile get anything from them. 

A breath, or was it a hundred? Before the fire faded away, failed against her defense. She bent over double, sucking in oxygen, hands on her knees.

“Whoa,” Prompto breathed from somewhere above her. When she finally picked her head up, there was a lull in the fighting and Noctis was just on the other side of the barrier. Their eyes met, and he nodded once, lips tight.

She let the barrier fall, and Noctis rushed to Prompto, giving him a quick battle check-over. 

Two sets of hands pulled her up to standing, Noctis and Prompto at her sides. 

“You alright?” Noctis asked.

“Fine, just winded,” she said, and turned to look at the cause of the missile. Her teeth bared themselves of their own volition. 

“What was  _ that? _ ” squawked from the speakers. 

She didn’t bother with an answer. “Marcone, flash cannon the legs! Then bone rush the cockpit,  _ I want that fucker! _ ”

Marcone was  _ glad _ to start on the big, irritating target, followed quickly by Gladio and Ignis. Cor was last to follow as he dragged his eyes off the group of three. 

Bright silver flashes needled from Marcone’s paws into the sensitive points of the mecha’s joints. The others took advantage of the effective damage to hammer away at the legs as Marcone jumped up to the top and began to use bone rush as a makeshift  _ can opener _ , voice inside the mecha panicking over the intercom. 

A spine-shuddering screech of tearing metal met their ears as Marcone got his paws into the open space of the cockpit and the intercom on the mecha broke off. It stopped firing as the controller was yanked out by his overwrought ceremonial armor and dangled over the side, feet kicking. 

“How  _ dare _ you treat me like this, I am a noble of Niflheim! I will see you thrown in the stocks--” 

Marcone gave him a shake and he abruptly shut up. 

The mecha shut down as it was destroyed.

“Niflheim mech self-destruct!” Ignis called. “Retreat out of range!”

Marcone easily leaped off the mecha, taking his prisoner with him, and the whole group of them got to watch their mess dispose of itself. 

Tunmelt  _ tried _ to struggle out of Marcone’s grip, but stopped completely when he got shoved towards Cor. Who knocked him out with a punch. 

Brienne fought to control the battle giddiness as everything else calmed down. “Hope you like your gift, Cor. One new source of enemy information, ready to go.”

Cor grunted, and heaved Tunmelt over his shoulder. “Impressive,” he nodded, and sighed. “Seeing you in action,  _ all _ of you in action, puts my mind at ease.”

Brienne felt all four young men stand a little taller, battle fatigue be damned. She smiled sadly. 

“I’ll go back to watching the Niffs. And with  _ this _ one in a corner pocket somewhere,” he shrugged his shoulder to settle Tunmelt more firmly. “I’ll know exactly where to look. Keep an ear out for me. Good luck.”

He turned to go, back towards the Leide side of the blockade, when a lightbulb went on over Brienne’s head. “Wait. Shouldn’t we  _ destroy _ this blockade? So Niflheim can’t just waltz right back and take it over again?”

“Destroy it with what--” Cor cut himself off mid-question. “Right. You want to destroy it, Lalonde, feel free. Just make sure you leave the road clear for traffic.”

“Can do!” She chirped.

...Was it her imagination, or was Cor picking up just a little bit of speed?

Exhaustion hit her all at once as her first battle since the fall of Insomnia ended. Her stores still weren’t completely refilled, and this had been harder than any of the boys had even hinted at. 

Giant fucking mecha  _ her ass. _

She found herself leaning on Prompto, and he shifted his weight to accommodate her. 

“Soooo...how’re we gonna put this place down to the ground before sunset? Because I don’t have any C4 hidden in my pockets.” Gladio asked, looking right at her.

“Remember Cinnamon?”

Prompto laughed. “How could we  _ forget? _ ”

“Let’s just say that demolition comes easy to her,” Brienne grinned tiredly.


End file.
